Between Friends
by ronny-of-yore
Summary: Odd moments between an older Sakura and Sai that may lead to something neither one had ever envisioned for themselves. Can the transition between hate to friendship ultimately lead to love? Anything’s possible in the world of shinobi. Sai/Saku
1. Pseudo Date

_*Note: This first part is more of an introduction to their current relationship I've set in this particular time period. It's set after what I like to call "The Pein Era". So be forewarned that I've taken liberties with how I see those events ending. I intend to make the following chapters bits and pieces of Sakura and Sai's time together doing and sharing odd moments, whose strung together events build to something in the end. So things won't be my usual eye-blurring length. I've also taken Sai and given him my own depth, because I think there's more to him than meets the eye. Anyway, I'll stop rambling now and let you read. Please enjoy. _

* * *

_**Pseudo Date**_

"Sakura, why is the heroine not speaking to her-"

"_Sh._"

"But I do not understand the-"

"_Sh._"

"But the other character did not-"

"_Sh._"

"But I cannot follow the-"

"_Sai, I swear to Go-!"_

However, the "_Sh!_" that was sent Sakura's way from the many people situated: next to, in front of, and behind them, in the darkened theatre, made the roar on Sakura's lips freeze in midsentence, her anger being quickly replaced with another emotion.

Body rolling down her seat like strawberry flavored goo, the kunoichi pouted.

_Stupid Sai._

The embarrassed twenty year old female turned reproachful eyes upon the man sitting next to her –that hadn't taken the hint that she would have preferred at least five rows between- while pursing her lips with her mouth gravitating toward the side of her face perturbed.

It had been how many years now and he was still asking questions that, at his age, he should already know? Sakura knew for a fact that he wasn't as stupid as everyone thought he was on the subject of emotions, contrary to what she was always yelling in his face. She also knew, more times than not, that he would now make his snide comments or ask his naïve questions just to get a rise out of her or, in front of others, to play innocent in the face of trouble.

_You've had five years now to figure out human emotions, you jerk!_

Sakura's forthright anger slowly dissipated as she sat back in her seat to watch the show with a rumbling feeling of resignation rolling around in her tummy.

What could she say? It wasn't really his fault. Although he may be a genius in battle strategy and jutsu, he still wasn't up to par in the romance department. With a movie about teenage angst, of course he still didn't know what things like love and affection were. The inept fool still, as of yet, hadn't taken to looking at anyone of the opposite sex in a _more than friends_ type of way.

Regardless of what Ino seemed to think.

She was just silently thanking whatever higher being was listening that he hadn't taken a shine to individuals with his favorite word dangling between their legs.

No matter what she liked to fantasize about, having the stars of her wet dreams actually taking it up the rear wasn't exactly what she had in mind in reality –unless it was a jutsu using well placed kagebushin of course. I mean, come on. She really didn't want to see someone like Kakashi-sensei bending over for… _anyone_.

Or did she?

_Hm…_

Crossing her arms and sighing at her own perversion, Sakura inwardly shook her head as the teen on screen forked over a hand drawn picture to her male childhood friend –the stick figures holding hands being a sad form of love letter in her case.

Watching the poor girl's love interest turn her down and then turn tail and run away down their school's busy halls, Sakura's inner thoughts turned to the person Sai's ticket was _supposed_ to have been used by in the first place.

_Why the hell did Ino-pig have to give this sorry bastard her ticket? And why the hell didn't he say no to seeing a chickflick in the first place?_

The scornful look on the flower shop owner's face as she had handed over her ticket to the individual -that just so happened to be there at the time, after Chouji had come and told Ino that the members of their old team were being hailed by the Hokage, hadn't been necessary. Contrary to what the airheaded blonde –with more chest on her person than brains in her head- thought, her emotionally stunted teammate wasn't a prize worth fighting over in Sakura's _highly biased_ book.

Emerald eyes narrowed on Sai's profile as he continued to noisily munch on the popcorn her hard-earned money had bought, her inner self's tongue flapping in his oblivious direction with thumbs stuck in her ears, fingers wiggling.

_Ha-ha-ha! You're no Sasuke, you pasty bastard! …even if your belly shirt, that you're thankfully not wearing, is as gay as that purple rope he uses to hold up his-_

"Sakura?" Sai so rudely interrupted, completely oblivious to her inner rant as he went about prodding an answer out of her again about the bizarre ritual that was falling in love.

"What, you bastard?" Sakura irritably asked, eyes still on the film before them and not on the one thankfully wearing his all black –and all covering- casual clothes.

Sai, sans headband with buttoned up clothes closely resembling the male uniform on screen, smiled at the pet name she and Naruto had kindly dubbed him with, "I do not understand-"

"_Quietly_," Sakura interrupted, eyes glaring at the people around them, who were glaring back.

Sai tried again, his voice a few octaves lower, confused gaze still on the projection picture before them, "I cannot seem to grasp the plot of this movie. Could you enlighten me on what exactly I'm supposed to be following?"

Sakura snorted unladylike next to him, having had half a mind that those particular words were going to slip from his irritably flapping lips.

At least it was a more suitable question then the one he had asked during the previews, _"Cannot a butcher knife be easily countered by even the basic of jutsu?"_

Her dry reply of, "_It's a horror movie Sai and they're not ninja,"_ had fallen on deaf ears, however.

Leaning over, she took pity on him in that moment, explaining what she had gathered from the film so far, "Kyoko-chan is in love with her childhood friend Kitsuragi-senpai, who's in love with that other girl. Its what's called a love triangle."

She watched Sai's gaze float down to the top of the person's head in front of him as he pondered with just the slightest bit of quirked brow on his bland features, his words spoken slowly –like the wheels she could almost hear turning in his head, "Love triangle?"

Sakura snatched a handful of the buttery goodness, whose bag was finally leaning her way in the man's gloved hands, during his pause. Stuffing it into her mouth with a few pieces littering the front of her shirt, Sakura nodded, speaking with her cheeks inflated, not unlike a squirrel hording its nuts.

With Sakura's, "_Yeah_," sounding more like a "Rwar," in his ears, Sai looked back up to the screen just as Kyoko-chan began to drink herself into a stupor all by her lonesome in her room.

While staring at the bottle of Jack the woman was now chugging from, Sai gave a curt nod, his attention having moved on to different venues apparently, "Alcohol _is_ the number one shinobi downfall."

Sakura rolled her eyes at the remark, before sneaking some more of her own popcorn that the idiot had commandeered at the beginning of the show –after having remarked about weight gain and how Sakura should avoid it, "Says _you._"

"Actually, it is stated quite clearly in the A.N.A handbook," Sai replied with that fake smile she hated with a passion.

Lips pursing and gravitating to the side of her face again, Sakura found herself asking against her better judgment, "A.N.A?"

Eyes back on the screen to the heroine having narrowly escaped tossing her cookies onto her bedroom floor –now doing so on her bathroom floor, Sai rolled off disapprovingly as if she should have known this tidbit already, "Alcoholic Ninjas Anonymous."

A pink brow rose as she dusted her food-stained front off with a hand, "Why were you reading-" Then she shook her head, deciding it was better not poke around the black hole that was Sai's brain, "You know what? Forget it."

However, Sai took it upon himself to answer anyway, "Seeing as how Hokage-sama is already _hooked on the drink _as they say, it clearly alludes to the possibility of her young apprentice one day acquiring the same dysfunction. A shinobi should always be prepared and as I've read, one should help out their friends in times of nee-"

"Look, you jerk," Sakura interrupted while leaning closer, letting the heat of her glare scorch the side of his pale profile that looked like the milky skinned shinobi hissed at even the mere _thought_ of the sun, "Just because I enjoy the occasional cup of sake now and again doesn't mean I'll turn to abusing it."

Sai merely shrugged, giving an unimpressed "If you say so," as he turned his attention back to the screen.

His words and actions only served to make Sakura angrier as she crossed her arms with a, "Tch," before forcing her own eyes back on the playing movie.

So what if she liked to drink? Who didn't? Besides, she sure as hell never allowed herself to get as trashed as the woman currently crawling on her hands and knees to answer her front door on screen –apparently her parents were gone for the evening. Ok. Maybe once or twice Sakura had allowed herself to go past mere tingling lips to mind numbing ripped, but come on! At least she had friends to dump her unconscious body on her bed, unlike the poor sap on film.

Of course Sai had been her shoulder to lean on during those times on more than one occasion, because she simply _did not_ trust Naruto -even if he had turned his failed attentions to a certain Hyuuga. Besides, both Kakashi-sensei and Yamato Taichou always came up with excuses to leave before she had gotten three-sheets to the wind, that is, if they even showed up at all.

The disgruntled kunoichi looked to the side, her features that of a pout. She wasn't as bad as Tsunade-sama. Not yet anyway…

Sai's next question had her sighing with her neck doing that jelly head roll thing against the back of her seat as the woman on screen started drunkenly pounding on her suddenly appearing Senpai on her doorstep, the idiot having had a change of heart –only after having found his girlfriend in bed with his best friend, "If the plot is as you say, then why does the lead choose to abuse the man she happens to have what is called _feelings _for if he has decided to accept her as his own? Would it not be better to," He frowned as he paused, trying to grasp the right words. Then after a nod, he tried again with a smile, "Would it not be better to act less Hag-like?"

Unfortunately for Sai, a fist decided to say hello to the side of his face in reply, the woman that smoking appendage belonged to just knowing his words had been meant as a dig toward her own mannerisms.

It was his favored nickname for her after all, one that he tended to use to seriously piss her off.

Sai instantly fell over into a sideways U-shape just as, eyes blazing, Sakura flipped the bird to the collective hiss sent her way from the peanut gallery around them.

_Bastards lucky I didn't punch him through the wall! _

The ink-user, picking himself back up with a few audible pops of his spine, rubbed his bruised cheek, fingers timidly touching its tenderness as he opened and closed his mouth, clearing testing the mobility of his jaw.

"It seems you and Kyoko-chan have much in common as I thought," Sai quipped, his features managing a smile even while the side of his face swelled like a balloon.

"Shut up!" Fuming, Sakura's hiss was much like a cat's as she reprimanded the naïve fool, "Sometimes women have to manhandle men, because bastards like you make us!"

Trying to still her beating heart and frazzled nerves, Sakura tried to sit quietly in her seat. However, her body became restless, repositioning her legs with the cheeks of her rear not feeling settled where they were.

Well, especially as the action on screen began to display things one could find in their team leader's dog-eared paperbacks.

A wide brow began to sweat as the actions after that impromptu kiss onscreen suddenly dipped to soft-core and then to hard, effectively turning the kunoichi's cheeks a flaming red while Sai merely looked on.

Sakura found the experience much like watching TV with her parents when suddenly the digital people in that stupid box started to make out. …Except these people had blown past mere sucking face to things too graphic for Sakura to keep her –not so- innocent eyes on.

And Sai tilting his head, in what she just knew was his way of determining how to put such a scene into his commissioned work, did nothing to help matters.

Although Sai still had no idea about the emotions that went along with the act, Sakura was all too aware that the prick knew what sex was alright. The bastard was drawing it for a _living_! The _Icha Icha_ series had been continued on, much to its silver haired number one fan's greatest joy, by one Uzumaki Naruto with the man, beside her, being its illustrator.

Although their old sensei thoroughly enjoyed the new development, being able to add his own comments to help shape and mold what he loved, Sakura _did not_.

For one, Sai's informational books that he always carried around with him were now intermixed with adult magazines, things that he said were essential to his work –that he had no problem perusing in front of the entire world…with her around!

He was much, much worse than Kakashi-sensei in her book.

Gripping the only armrest that Sai hadn't taken over, the poor kunoichi couldn't wait for the next scene to start as she tried to keep her composure, while watching the movie that she had no idea would have such erotica in it in the first place.

Regrettably, Sakura was left wanting to crawl into a hole as Sai's normal carrying voice filtered to the ears of those around them in the silence as he offhandedly commented with a sigh and a shake of his head, "He lacks penis."

* * *

Pushing through the double doors into the night air, Sakura, huffed out a "You're impossible," remembering quite clearly how the many people around them had snickered at his colorful comment –and later snickered again as the lights had come on at the end in their faces.

"I was merely making an objectionable observation. I obviously cannot use that man's penis as a-"

"Shut the hell up will you!" Sakura immediately cut him off as she clamped a hand over his mouth from behind, dying of embarrassment as the nearest people milling out of the theater's doors around them began to laugh.

Finally letting him go, after turning his face blue -her hand having covered his nose as well in the process- Sakura fumed some more, "Why can't you act like a normal human being for once?" Trudging off, she grumbled, "I knew this whole thing was a bad idea."

However, Sai's next words as he caught up with her had her ire dissipating, "Thank you for taking me along. It was informative, even though I did not find much in the way of material."

Sakura cut him a look, trying to decide if his words were more of a mask like his smile. Was the fool trying to butter her up like that popcorn she had wished she had gotten a little more of?

Sighing in resignation, she decided to give him a safe, "Shut up," in return.

"Come on," She prodded with a smirk. With a grin forming her words got louder with each syllable uttered, "Since you owe me after that fiasco, its ice-cream time!" Snorting like a bull she added, "_On_ _you_."

* * *

"What exactly is a love triangle," Sai asked, sitting on the other side of the park bench, after licking the side of a vanilla flavored cone.

"Mrm?" Sakura tried to articulate around the large portion of banana split she had just fed her face.

Sai licked the dripping side near the napkin wrapped around the items base in his hand before speaking, "A love triangle, what is it?"

Sakura thought while she chewed on her food. Then after forcing the large bit of banana down her throat, the woman chose her words carefully, able to speak freely of that particular subject now, "Well, I guess you could use Naruto, Sasuke, and I as an example."

Sakura spooned more of her treat between her greedy lips as Sai looked at her with that perplexed expression. Actually, it was more of a slight twitch of the brow and just the hint of thinned lips on that blank face, but Sakura knew the many faces of Sai now –even if nobody else could see it.

After unintentionally being around each other so much: finding each other reading in the library more times than not, watching Naruto train from a distance, training together and going on missions and such, Sakura had gotten to know a lot about the ex-ROOT member.

They were things like: he sometimes wore glasses while reading, liked to do still-life paintings instead of abstract now, hated being called Inky –by Naruto- and, for reasons beyond her, didn't mind hanging around her even though he always stuck his foot in his mouth which later prompted her to stick her foot in his ass.

However, she also knew the look he was currently giving her meant that he wasn't going to let the question drop either.

Sighing, she further explained, "A love triangle is when one person likes the other, but that person who is liked actually likes someone else." Spooning the last bit of fruit sauce into her mouth, she added while looking down at the grass of the small park they were sitting in, "Like Naruto, Sasuke and I."

After another lick, Sai intoned looking down at the grass himself, "You mean in a situation where no one ends up with the other?" Turning to her, he asked with that air of detachment around him, "I do not see the point of," He paused before finding the right words, "having feelings for someone who will not return your own."

Sakura rolled her eyes as she tossed her trash in the rubbish bin beside her, "A person can't help who they fall in love with, Sai. It just happens whether that person likes it or not. Besides, like you saw in the movie, things don't always work out the way they did for _us_."

Thinking of the wandering Uchiha, no longer rogue, she had said no to sharing a self discovering journey with after the war, Sakura jut her chin at the man's melting treat in his hands, "Now hurry up and eat. It's starting to get cold out."

A comfortable silence surrounded them as she let Sai finish up beside her, while she took that time to stare up at the stars overhead, a feeling of peace overcoming her.

Sakura was thankful that, unlike Naruto, Sai wasn't constantly babbling, even though he did make her wanted to rip his false smiling lips off at times and feed them to one of Kakashi's nin-hounds.

But like Naruto, Sai had wormed his way under her skin and close to her heart as well. They were close friends and even he had come to understand the meaning of that particular bond. He had showed it when he had turned against his old mentor in favor of staying by their side and opposing his plans to usurp her own mentor.

Besides, she knew that Sai only chose to ask his questions about life and love to her and Naruto, keeping mum with that twitch of upturned lips to others. Even though it was hair pulling at times, Sakura found that knowledge kind of flattering in a way.

Looking up to the half-moon hanging in the sky, Sakura smiled tenderly.

_Bastard's not so bad, I suppose._

But then the words, "Are you ready to go, Hag?" had her scowling.

It looked like she was back to being his usual target for ridicule, however playful the jerk had meant it.

Punching his arm, making sure it hurt, she got up with a growl, "Come on, you bastard. We got training in the morning."


	2. Blue Flame Interlude

_*Note: Since the contents of these little moments are so short, like tonight, some of my postings may even be twice per day -depending on when I'm hit with inspiration that is. Heh._

**_Blue Flame Interlude_**

Green eyes squinted above a white mask shrouded by a like colored hood as a sideways wind tried to push Sakura over into the knee-high snowdrift that she and her partner were currently walking on top of, with chakra staining the soles of their boots. A hand gripping the front of her equally white fur-lined jacket, the kunoichi continued her trek, pushing forward against the elements with Sai equally struggling beside her.

More than halfway to the top of that icy cap that was the dangerous mountain they were scaling, their final destination was on the other side: the igloo-like village of Karas.

The remote village being in the furthest reaches of Earth Country, she and Sai had been ordered to go help out a group of Rock shinobi with a new strain of flu virus that was spreading in that particular part of their own back yard.

It was all part of the newly formed alliance the five great nations had formed after the war.

Sakura wouldn't have minded really, if the effort to actually get there wasn't so vexing.

However, their short term goal was the top of the mountain and fortunately it was just a little further up. Sakura was more than thankful for that, for the lasts bits of sun poking out between the clouds above were steadily dwindling.

They seriously didn't need to go traipsing about in subzero temperatures any colder than what it already was, especially at night.

After thirty more minutes of their bone chilling journey had passed, they finally hit the top.

Immediately, Sakura's shaky hands formed seals, the fruits of her earth jutsu leaving them with a hut like structure to shield them from the elements.

Sakura chucked her pack that had been digging into her shoulder for the past hour onto the dirt formed floor, doing much the same with her body without delay.

After Sai stepped into their shelter, Sakura's hands formed even more hand signs to seal up the opening.

Encased completely in darkness now, with the slight howl of the wind around them, Sai took out the emergency Chem Light he had stashed in his black coat pocket. Neon purple light softly glowed from the stick as he used it to search around in his pack, looking for a certain item he had luckily thought to bring for just such an occasion.

Sakura drew back her hood and pulled down the white mask to her chin as she asked, "Did you remember to bring the scroll?"

Sai gave her a cross, "Of course," in return, feeling that her question was silly seeing as how he prided himself on always being prepared.

After pulling out said scroll, he set the purple tube of light down next to it. After unfurling its contents he did a few hand seals and then a nice little blue, chakra-fed campfire filled the center of the small room.

Taking her gloves off, Sakura gave a heavy sigh, "Well, this blows."

Sai gave a small laugh behind his black mask as he withdrew his own gloves to warm his frozen fingers upon the new warmth, "Yes, I'd have to agree in this situation."

Scooting up next to the fire, Sakura groaned, lamenting her distaste for their current predicament even further, "I'm hungry."

Pooling his mask below his chin, Sai offhandedly commented, "At least this fabricated hovel is sufficient enough for the night, even if your earth nature skills are nowhere near up to par with Yamato-Taichou's."

"Can it, you bastard," Sakura halfheartedly growled, knowing his dig was partly true. She really had ways to go in mastering the skill. She couldn't bust out an ass load of shadowclones to get the job done in half the time like a certain kyuubi-container.

However, she was doubly proficient in another type of ying and yang nature. Corners of her mouth turning upward, Sakura asked, "Beach or Summer glade?"

"Seeing as how I do not favor the idea of having rushing water remind me of things I'd rather not do in the cold," Sai began with a smile, "I'd have to say the glade please."

Seals were completed and they found themselves sitting under a night sky with a field of flowers surround them and their crackling blue fire, completely captured by the kunoichi's genjutsu.

Sakura laid her back against the trunk of the tree that was in reality the wall behind her, while unzipping her jacket with a contented sigh, "Being a ninja sure has its advantages."

"Abuse of one's skill is usually frowned upon, but I would have to agree with you again under the circumstances," Sai gave as he undid his own coat, taking it off to expose the half-shirted uniform underneath.

Sakura raised a brow, "For someone who is always prepared, I thought for sure you'd have better sense than to wear that damn thing in this kind of weather."

"Spending money on frivolities is not something a ninja should do. There are far better things to spend one's paycheck on like weapons, scrolls, or brushes," Snidely he offered, "I will leave such materialistic spending to you and those of your gender."

Sakura grumbled irritably, "Don't come crying to me if you catch a cold."

Speaking of the act of actually asking her for anything -without the threat of death looming over him- Sai smiled, "I would never."

Sakura glared quietly from her place as Sai, sitting by the fire, took out his sketchbook and needed materials.

However, the cold bit of earth behind her that was sorely messing up the scene of summer around her had the kunoichi relocating herself.

Sai said nothing as his partner for the mission pressed her back to his. He merely paused while waiting for the troublesome woman to still behind him.

Having finally settled herself with her jacket being used as a blanket of sorts, Sakura felt Sai go about his business behind her.

After a few minutes of silence passed, punctuated by the scrit-scrat of coal on paper, the warmth radiating from the body behind Sakura lulled her lashes to half-mast. Speaking up, voice slightly hoarse from her sudden attack of exhaustion, the kunoichi asked curiously, "What'cha drawing this time?"

She heard and felt his action pause as he replied, "A summer scene, much like the one around us."

With a feint smile on her lips, Sakura's head lolled to the side, leaning back on and partly over his left shoulder.

"Help detract from the cold, eh?" She asked, while closing her eyes.

"Exactly," was her reply.

"I know you so well," Sakura softly quipped, before finally allowing sleep to embrace her.

Being coaxed by the sandman, the kunoichi didn't notice the extended pause that seemed to linger as the one on the other side of her turned away body stared at his work in progress in silence. Nor was she aware, already breathing evenly in deep sleep, of the turn of the other's head as he regarded her own pink layered crown with a different kind of twitch of the lips, one that she rarely got to see.

A true smile.


	3. A Light for the Nameless

_**A Light for the Nameless**_

"This blows," Sakura grumbled low so that the walking away –and thankfully no longer wailing- little brat holding a water-filled bag with a swimming little goldfish in it, who hadn't actually captured the little fishy, couldn't hear.

"Is one not supposed to be smiling and cheerful at this time?" Sai asked, false smile in place as he exchanged money with another little crumb snatcher for his wares: a cat mask complete with brown painted fur and black whiskers.

"Why do I always get stuck with you?" Sakura grumbled from her goldfish stand as Sai hung yet another painted mask on the now empty nail, on the tall, wooden display behind him that served as his own festival stall.

"I find your statement ironic, since I have found myself asking that very same question," Sai answered as he turned to pick up a blank face-covering, intent to start on another creation with ink and brush settled on the sheet covered, rectangle table that served as his counter of sorts.

Instead of retorting back, Sakura pouted with her hands cradling her depressed features, elbows on the surface where her little moneybox rested, "I even bought a new kimono and everything." Blowing out a dejected breath, she added morosely, "I wanted to look cute at this year's Obon festival, not work the stalls again, damn it."

"You should be glad that you did not waste the effort," Sai remarked with the tiniest chuckle as his brush swirled spirals on the cheeks of the new mask in his hands.

Sakura cut the shinobi, who was apparently enjoying himself, a fast glare before straightening, having caught new customers heading her way from the corner of an eye. Just before the family of three arrived for a little fun, she hissed to the smiling man in the stall beside her own, "Bastard."

* * *

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto called from a stall down the way, with a blushing Hinata, in a beautiful periwinkle, dark blue, and pinkish-white Kimono, wrapped around an arm.

Narrowing her eyes at the one, who just so happened not to be picked for staff duty that year, Sakura growled back, "Naruto."

All but dragging his girlfriend along, Naruto bounded over to them with a bounce in his step, the spirit of the evening having completely made the usually chipper idiot even livelier.

As they came to a halt in front of her stall, Naruto nudged his date to hold up what was held in her delicate hands, "Look! Look!" Nodding to the orange-red, mini paper lantern, Naruto grinned wide, "We snagged you an offering since Hinata-chan said you might not've gotten a chance to participate in the ceremony earlier!"

Sakura smiled and bowed to the blushing pale-eyed kunoichi, taking the offering while giving her gratitude, "As a matter of fact, I didn't. Thanks, Hinata."

"Y-You're welcome, Sakura," Hinata smiled with a little bow of her own, from her place next to her favorite male. The two women were more than grateful to the other for more reasons than one; the main reason being, of course, Sakura's let down of Naruto in their teens so that the Byakugan-user could finally get him to look her way in the end.

The two women shared another secret smile as Naruto looked over to the side, finally noticing the familiar face of his other teammate, who was currently in the process of giving away another mask, "Hey! I didn't know Sai-bastard was actually gonna show up this year!"

After bowing to his customer, an old lady who had wanted a young girls mask, Sai turned toward the whiskered newcomer, "Hokage-sama said my participation was mandatory, for staffing was shortchanged due to various reasons."

Naruto shrugged, "Well, I guess it's a good thing."

Hinata looked worried beside him as she spoke up, her speech aimed at the other male, "I-I'm sorry Sai-san, I did not known that you would be here. If I had known-"

"Do not worry. It is quite alright," Sai genially offered in return.

Just then the sound of Kiba's voice down the stall-made road of sorts grabbed the couple's attention, "Hinata! Bring your useless boyfriend over here and get him to challenge me! This shooting range gag needs more competition! Shino sucks!"

Naruto yelled back in her place, already dragging the poor Hyuuga along, "What's that, Dog-boy? You wanna go?!"

Sakura gave a wave to a beaming Hinata, who didn't mind being manhandled in the slightest, "G-Goodbye, I hope you two enjoy the- ah!"

Sakura shook her head as Naruto's pace quickened even more, cutting the poor woman off.

"What is it about the Hyuuga that Naruto finds appealing?" Sai asked with a tinge of confusion, not seeing at all what his teammate apparently saw in the timid woman. Turning to the kunoichi in her stall beside him, he added with a smile, "Although it seems her chest is much larger than your-."

Sakura's fist hit the side of his flapping lips, the top half of her torso leaning out of the side-window with her arm fully extended, "Shut up!"

With a passing child clinging to its mother's leg crying, "That Baabaa's scary, Mama!" Sakura righted herself, while running her hands through her hair, "Never know when to quit do you?"

Rubbing the side of his swollen features, Sai managed a ghost of a smirk on his abused face, "I was only speaking the-"

However the murderous glare she sent his way, with accompanying crackling charge, effectively cut his speech short again.

Instead of continuing, Sai's gaze fell on the small offering resting beside Sakura's moneybox, his question, since first seeing the thing that night, easily slipping from his lips, "What exactly does one do with that?"

Sakura followed his gaze and then flicked her own to him as her lips pursed, "How can you not-"

Then she stopped herself and sighed.

Being who he was, Sakura felt she should have known better. Besides, this was the first year since they had known him that he had actually gravitated his way to the event, even though it was under such conditions as it were.

Picking up and handling the circular bit of paper with the little candle inside, Sakura explained, "Well, you write the name of your late loved one on it and then place it on the riv-" Stopping, she nodded to the other like objects already floating down the village's water system, under the nearby bridge, "Well, in our case you place it anywhere along there with a prayer." Putting it back down on the counter Sakura added with a sigh and a look towards the one still staring at the little offering with interested eyes, "It's usually done during the opening ceremony, but us sorry staff members have to do it afterwards." With a tender smile she added, "I'm just grateful Hinata thought to pick one up, because I'd completely forgotten to stop by the vendor and get one myself."

Sitting down and picking up yet another mask to work on, Sai asked indifferently, "Whose name will you be writing, Sakura?"

The kunoichi's cheeks flushed as she purposely looked away, her grumble barely heard, "Flipper-san."

Sai paused with his brush inches from his work. Then, slowly looking up with a confused crease of his brows, he inquired, "Is that a particular type of given nickname?" Going about his business again, making two overly large teeth at the bottom of the mouth piece in his hands, Sai further asked, "Was he a sensei who taught survival skills in the water, possibly during your time as a genin?"

Sakura promptly turned her back to the man. Readying herself to deal with the group of children heading her way, the kunoichi, whose mother, father, and grandparents were milling about somewhere within the sea of bodies, replied simply, "My pet fish."

Sai merely gave his usual false smile as his eyes gravitate back to the little unlit lantern on her counter.

* * *

"Oh man, if I hear one more screaming kid," Sakura trailed off while closing up shop, the empty aquarium depicting her grand sales –or lack thereof since she had quickly given most away in an effort to stop quivering lips and watery eyes.

Sai, his own stock having sold, pocketed the fat envelope of money as he gave his own dry comment about the wails that had come from the woman's stall throughout the long night, "Indeed."

Eyes on the item being picked up in the kunoichi's hand, Sai casually asked, "Going to submit your offering now?"

"Yeah," Sakura offhandedly gave as she dug a hand around in her pocket, looking for the Zippo lighter she had borrowed from her father when her family had stopped by.

Further searching, she wondered why Sai kept asking about it in the first place. She had also caught him looking at it more than a few times during their shared shift.

Then, hands grasping what she had sought after, the kunoichi paused, a nagging feeling making her eyes swing over to the man getting up from his table.

"Say Sai," She began hesitantly, "Are you sure you didn't want to light one too? Maybe if we ask around we can still find you-"

"No," Sai replied evenly, while folding his chair up and leaning it against the stall wall, "As I've said before, it's quite alright."

"But don't you have any one's name that you'd want to write down? You know, someone that you'd want to pray for?" She further prodded, a certain memory telling her that he just might.

"No, I do not."

Hesitantly touching upon the subject that was rarely breached, Sakura asked with care, "What about your _'brother'_, Sai?"

Sai turned his full attention to the prying kunoichi with a blank face that would have looked the same as ever if his eyes weren't so unreadable in that moment -even to her. After a pregnant pause, he replied quietly, "But I do not have a name to go with an offering."

Of course he didn't have name to go along with the-

A heavy weight dropped into the pit of her stomach as her chest tightened, Sakura left feeling like kicking her own ass in that moment.

Sai didn't…

A curse was sent to the man who had died under her first love's electrified sword, before the war had even ended.

_Damn you, Danzou. I hope you're enjoying rotting in hell, you bastard._

Sai didn't…

Sai didn't even remember his _own_ name, the members of ROOT having been brainwashed into thinking that such titles were meaningless from the start, only being given codenames from their superiors for the means of missions when needed.

Any record that their members truly existed, along with any trace of their origins had been destroyed, in a guise of his warmongering late mentor's efforts to keep his army of sorts hidden in utter secrecy.

Sakura's hand tightened over the lighter in her grasp, her thoughts not on the youth the one before her had called brother, but of the man himself. Even though he didn't have a surname or a real name at that, he was still her trusted teammate and friend –no matter how anger inspiring he could be at times.

Whatever he had done in the past, whatever birth name he was given, he was and _would always be_ Sai to them.

And that's why Sakura made up her mind to do what she was about to do. Giving a silent apology to Flipper-san, the kunoichi strode over to the shinobi about to leave.

"Sai, wait," Sakura stopped him with a hand to his arm. Then, taking Sai's hand with her other, she placed the unlit candle in his upturned palm, curling his fingers around it with her own, "Here take it."

"But I do not have a-" Sai began with drawn together brows.

"_You do_," Sakura resolutely interrupted. Handing over her borrowed lighter as well, she explained in softer tones, "A name is just a title, Sai. But, you gave him your own, didn't you? So, go on. Write it."

Sai stared at her for a long moment, before his gaze slowly slid down to the object in his hand.

Deciding to help him further, Sakura nipped the brush hanging from his side pocket, and handed it to his empty hand while prodding quietly, "Go on."

After another long moment, Sai finally took it, fingers expertly twisting the end, letting the ink inside the hallowed out bamboo saturate the bristles beneath.

Then, in careful script, Sai slowly began to write on the side of the paper with Sakura looking on.

As she watched his brush strokes come to an end, she gave a "Here let me," as she took the lighter. After a flick, the candle within was lit, illuminating the black painted word _Nii-san_ brightly.

Smiling, Sakura grabbed a hold of Sai's wrist, whose hand wasn't holding the candle, and led him in the direction of the running water that originated from the baths –the makeshift river, already filled with lights, being used for the occasion.

After having led him to the edge of the flowing waters, she knelt beside him, her voice barely above a whisper, "Add _Nii-san's_ to the rest and we'll together pray. Ok?"

Ever so gently, Sai let his offering set sail on the wavering surface reflecting the moon's image in its shimmering calm, before clapping his hands together before him with eyes closed, with the woman beside him doing much the same.

Then after a few moments of silence, both their eyes opened and they merely took in the wondrous sight before them with calm eyes and even calmer hearts.

Sakura wouldn't let _Nii-san's_ spirit go without. Just like they would never let Sai's own spirit go without prayer if ever that day came.

Sakura's smiling lips broke the stillness then with her words filled with confidence, "He'll know it's his. I'm sure of it."

The upturned lips and creased eyes sent her way made the man before her resemble a sweet and innocent young boy, a bit of true happiness lighting those usually pale cheeks with a healthy pink glow even in the semi-darkness, "Yes. I believe you are right."

Sakura returned that wonderfully carefree smile, forcing back the sudden urge to squeeze that rare bit of purity to her chest and keep it there, to protect it from the harsh reality of the word, a world that had already robbed her teammate of the ability to share such a heartwarming scene with others.

But then again, something inside her also wanted to keep that particular bit private, selfishly storing such a memory into the back of her mind. Exactly why, she didn't know, but the feeling was there all the same.


	4. Seafood Sacrifice

*Note: Ultra short, but I thought it went perfectly with the last chapter. :)

_**Seafood Sacrifice**_

"Oh man," Naruto moaned in delight, with his hands patting his rather rotund belly. The protruding end of his orange and black zip up jacket rested behind the edge of a grand table, its glossy surface decorated with different platters brimming with seafood, rice, vegetables, fish, and all kinds of other delicacies.

Yamato, sitting next to the leaning tower of Naruto's empty plates and bowls at the end of the table, nudged the man simply reading to his other side with a frown and a sigh, "They're at it again."

Kakashi, pausing in his after dinner reading, lowered his book, his eyes flicking to the two teammates now locked in heated chopsticked battle down the table.

With the lower half of the last jumbo tiger-shrimp caught between her wooden eating utensils, Sakura's eerily calm voice spoke to the one whose own chopsticks held her prize's top, "Stuff anymore food into that pasty face and you won't be able to fit into that damn belly shirt of yours."

A slight smirk. "I find that quite humorous coming from someone whose stomach already outmatches her chest."

"Y-You know, you really shouldn't-" Naruto began, his contentment rapidly giving way to anxiousness under the circumstances.

However, his advisement was cut short as Sakura retorted back, that same aura of forced calm surrounding her, "My dear Sai, did I not already explain that it's good manners to let the female have the last portion?"

Sai's slight smirk twitched further up as he retorted back, "Yes, but I do not see someone of the opposite gender in the vicinity." His lips and creased eyes portrayed his usual false smile as he added, "Do _you_?"

"You bastard!" The shrimp amidst their grasp was pulled by Sakura's chopsticks, but Sai's own kept the item where it currently was, being pushed back and forth between them.

Then, cheating in Sai's book, Sakura channeled a little chakra into her strained fingers, effectively using the new strength to rip her treasure from the smug bastard's wooden grip.

However, seconds before popping it into her mouth, Sakura paused.

And then with a heavy seated sigh of resignation, she extended her arm, squeezing her chopsticks over his plate, letting the now halved pieces of shrimp plop down on his platter.

Giving a smiling Sai a '_you'd better be thankful look'_; Sakura dipped her portion of the cut delicacy in the sauce on the man's plate, before finally popping it into her mouth.

Yamato quirked a brow at the exchange as Naruto asked incredulously –completely forgetting about his prior relief, "_That's it_?"

Looking away from the one across from her chewing with upturned lips to the confused whiskered one beside her, Sakura huffed with her own mouth full, "Rwha?"

Naruto looked between the his two best friends with a confused eye just as Yamato leaned over to the man still engrossed in his pages, "Seems those two are getting along well."

A hummed, "Indeed" was his answer.


	5. Warm Rain

_**Warm Rain**_

"G-Get…pant… the hell…pant…. off," Sakura wheezed from her position, laid out beneath an ass load of Naruto Clones in the damp training field, the sodden blades of grass, underneath her body, poking her legs, back, and her spandex covered rear.

However, the mountain of light rain soaked, orange and black bodies, currently crushing the very breath from her chest, was not her foremost concern.

Being the medic-nin that she was, the kunoichi could already tell that her right ankle was twisted, possibly being left with a nasty sprain in the process.

The moment the dog-pile above disappeared in a cloud of smoke, Sakura sucked in a greedy breath as she tried to sit up under the light downpour with a curse slipping from between the cracks in her clenched teeth, "Shit, that hurts."

"Sakura-chan! Are you ok?" The real Naruto yelled, while crawling out of from his hiding place in the damp soil spaces away.

"Do I look ok, Idiot?" Sakura hissed as she ran her hands through her saturated locks that were slowly turning a tad russet colored under the drizzle, before taking in the damage his mass bunch of kagebushin had reaped on her abused person.

Yamato, finishing up his own spar session with an equally wet Sai, took in the new development between their other two teammates across the way.

With each unsnap of the buttons lining the back of her calf-high, black sandal, a pained, "Ow!" fell from the kunoichi's biting lips.

"Sorry, Sakura-chan," Naruto began remorseful, while vehemently brushing the slight mud from his golden locks with his hands.

Sakura grumbled as she finally pried her footwear from the injured portion of her raindrop covered leg, "It's my own fault." With a hand glowing over the inflamed area, the kunoichi begrudgingly relented, speaking of the incident that had led to her downfall in the first place, "I was a second too late from dodging that last kick to the stomach or I would have _so_ had your sorry ass. I even knew where you were hiding too, damn it."

Eyeing the two making their way toward them, the blonde commented, "Looks like they're done too." Then after looking down at the black waterproof watch his pearly-eyed girlfriend had gotten him for Christmas the year before, Naruto's eyes stretched wide in alarm, "Oh shit!"

Sakura, continuing to administer care to her new injury, vaguely heard Naruto's yell to their approaching leader for the day –Kakashi being gone on a mission, "Yamato-Taichou, are we done now?"

The wet blonde's eyes turned huge and watery beneath his flattening fringe, the kyuubi-container all but begging, "Please, please, please say we are!"

Stepping up beside the kunoichi on the ground, Yamato gave a chuckle before nodding, "We've actually gone over our time today. So, yes, I'd say you're free to go, Naruto."

"Alright!" The blonde pumped a wet fist, before giving his quick goodbye, "See you guys tomorrow!"

As Naruto disappeared in a cloud of smoke, the woman below lamented a, "Just a sprain," before their leader could even get a word out.

Standing above with his arms crossed, Yamato hummed at the news under the now dark grey, cloud covered sky above, "Well, at least it's not broken." Then scratching a finger to the end of his wet nose, he looked away as Sakura smirked, "I guess I should take my leave now as well." Then turning all business again, the man instructed, "Same time tomorrow unless Hokage-sama has something else prepared for us."

Sakura nodded as their Taichou disappeared in a cloud of smoke, knowing the man was eager to go see a certain older kunoichi that should be getting off her shift around that same time.

Left with her troublesome teammate now, Sakura continued her care under the gradually increasing rain as Sai asked, "Did Yamato-Taichou leave to go meet with the Hokage's assistant again?"

Sakura managed a snort as the glow of her hands subsided, "Of course."

"I wonder what Naruto was on about," She spoke more to herself than to the man still beside her as she did up her footwear again, before going about tenderly getting to her feet.

After taking out a scroll, Sai airily gave his comment on the topic, while whiping his brush against the now unfurled blank surface with purposeful strokes, "Was not today the Hyuuga's birthday?" Hands folding the ink-created bat to that of an umbrella shape, Sai added, "I believe he mentioned something about having to pick out a gift on his way home from training today, before his and the Hyuuga's meeting later at the usual ramen shop."

Sakura flicked her gaze up from testing her weight upon her injured foot to the man standing under the protective animal of sorts, "He still hadn't gotten her anything?! What kind of boyfriend is that Idiot?!"

"One that is lacking apparently," Sai merely offered back, while watching the woman's actions before him with blank features.

Sakura shrugged while giving a wave over her shoulder, before trudging off with her destination being the little trail that lead back to the village a few feet away, "Eh, she'll like anything as long as it's from that idiot. See ya."

However, after hearing the sound of Sai's _poof_ behind her, Sakura stopped in her tracks as the man reappeared in front of her…crouched, back to her, his hands bent back invitingly –the bat-umbrella's feet wrapped tightly around his left shoulder.

"Uh, no," Sakura shook her head, immediately giving her negative to the thought of being carried, like some invalid, by the pompous jerk.

Sai merely gave her a bland, "You will take forever to return home at the speed you are going. And as we have been taught by Kakashi-san, it is my duty to help out a fellow teammate who is injured."

Sakura snorted, crossing her arms under the drizzle turned downpour, giving him a smug, "Since when did you become so chivalrous?"

"I am _not_," Sai smiled over a shoulder. His smile waned however as he sharply reminded, "But you are injured and will only become ill if exposed any longer to such a downpour." Giving her a slight lift of a dark brow -his form of pointed look she had come to know- Sai concluded much to her distaste, "In the end, any illness you achieve will only lead to Hokage-sama having to find a replacement medic for a mission, if our troublesome own ends up with a cold," That brow lifted even more to her great displeasure, before he added, "or _worse._"

With a grumble and a sigh -wholly against her will and _hating_ the fact that he was right- the now drenched bit of female gave a "Whatever," as she begrudgingly began to take him up on his offer with great pains.

Going about carefully settling herself on his back with more grumbling, the kunoichi sniffed irritably as his arms hooked under her legs, while she took the umbrella of sorts in her left hand, "You stink."

Finally pushing up from the ground with much ease, the impassive individual drawled off with a false smile, "And you are even heavier than you look."

"Shut up," Sakura tiredly rebuked as her free hand griped his right shoulder in a bracing hold as she lightly bounced with his rain-splashed steps.

Setting off in their favored direction, Sai added rather cheekily in her book, "My strength may give out before we even hit the edge of the village at this rate."

"Shut up."

"I can already feel my knees starting to shake."

"Shut up, you bastard," Sakura snarled as she yanked on his earlobe with her free right hand.

She let go as he merely smiled, the incensed woman thanking whoever was listening that he wisely chose to keep quiet.

Then, settling down, Sakura closed her eyes, inhaling the scent of ink and Sai –that didn't necessarily offend her delicate nostrils- while warily laying a cheek to his left damp shoulder as she wrapped her free arm around his right and a bit of his chest.

Frowning at the way the action felt so natural, the comfortable woman added quietly as she watched the rain-soaked scenery slowly pass by, "If you were gonna complain, you shouldn't have offered in the first place."

Sai merely trudged on, with his unseen lips taking on a sincere measure as his steps echoed off the little red bridge they were currently traversing. His smile stretched even further as the woman on his back grumbled a weak, "Idiot" into his shoulder for good measure.


	6. Failed Attempts

_**Failed Attempts**_

"You will die and I will finally become one of them," The small body crushing its weight upon the pale, broken arm, above a heaving chest, coldly commented, the white haired child of twelve's features no longer cute and cherub like.

Sai painfully stared up into those oddly illuminated, green orbs that had the unusual ability to still his body's movements, like a genjutsu that was all too real.

The child, that he and his team of five had befriended just three short days ago at the start of their mission, drew Sai's own blade from its sheath behind the shinobi's left shoulder, intent to shove it deep within the beating heart beneath its small frame.

The orphaned kid, having taken an unusual liking to the cold shinobi, had directed Sai through the mazelike forest in a false effort to reunite him with his comrades, who were currently dealing with a few of Thunder Country's missing-nin's intent on flooding the village.

However, as it turned out, Sai's pintsized companion was in fact an unlikely conspirator.

The band of men had apparently promised to induct the child, who hid his strange abilities, into their fold, if he served as their eyes and ears –and sometimes their assassin- within the village.

Small hands pushed the rectangular blade down through the first layer of black clothing with maniacal glee.

Suddenly, a sole of a black sandal collided with the side of the sneering brat's face, seconds before that lithe body went sailing into the side of the cliff face that Sai had been pushed from –the little devil-spawn's impact leaving spidery cracks around the new hole in the mountainside.

"Stay still," Sakura advised as she quickly knelt beside the sweating, pale shinobi, who tenderly began to try to sit up, his left arm, lying uselessly upon his chest, obviously broken. Hands already glowing above the area, the kunoichi let her chakra flow from her body in an effort to mend what she could, while relaying the other's current positions, "Yamato-Taichou is doing what he can to patch up the dam while Kakashi-sensei is doing what he can to derail the flow of water from the village." After picking up Sai's weapon that was thankfully dropped at his side, Sakura added, using the weapon as a splint of sorts for the broken arm, "Naruto's dealing with the other bastards as we speak."

"How did-?" Sai began to ask, after hissing from her suddenly rough manhandling.

"_Because_," Pulling the bandages she had taken out of her hip pouch a little too tightly around his arm, Sakura explained, "When I went back to look for you two, I found the bodies of his parents under the crawlspace in the floorboards." Nodding to the hole that now served as a grave, the kunoichi added darkly, "I wondered why the brat had taken a shine to you."

"I do not understand." Sai gave her blankly as he watched the kunoichi finish up his field dressings.

Sakura sighed, knowing the bad guy's spy had led her teammate astray in a guise to claim a prized kill to induct himself into the other's group, "Of course you don't. And that's why I'm here. I can't take my eyes off you for two seconds, can I?"

Sai lips took on a slight frown that she knew was his form of scowl, "I am not a child, Sakura."

Sakura replied, tying up the end of her work, "No. You're not, but you still didn't know that brat wanted to kill you."

Sai's gaze slowly swung to the crumbled wall spaces away, "I had my own suspicions, but," Looking down, he added, "I wanted to try my hand at putting my trust in others, like you and Naruto do at times."

Sakura paused to stare at Sai's blank profile for a moment, a tightness upon her chest. Then, forcing that emotion away, she moved to stand. After dusting herself off, she held out a hand, "Come on. I'm sure Naruto's finished up by now and I'm pretty sure Taichou and Sensei could use a hand or two."

Sai took the offering, using her steady grip as leverage to pull himself to his feet. Giving her his usual twist of the lips and eye-crease, the smiling shinobi replied, the two of them heading through the forest –leaving the newly built grave of sorts behind, "I take it I owe you for saving my life."

Sakura's face remained impassive as she replied, "Just be sure to pay me back the next time you see me in trouble and we'll call it even."

Sai nodded, "I will try."


	7. Wiping the Slate

_**Wiping the Slate**_

After hearing a gurgle from above, Sakura relinquished her squeezed hold on her lids as she felt something warm and liquidy splatter onto the top of her right cheek.

Emerald orbs stared into brown, their spacing but mere inches from one another, as the pale man above bled from the mouth and various other places on his body; the thin needle-like weapons sticking out of her savior's arms, back, and legs, not unlike the dangerous quills of a porcupine.

"Sai," The kunoichi's whisper trailed off as she called the man's name, who merely managed a weak smile in return as the blood running down his chin dripped onto her own.

Hands suddenly fisting in the covering shinobi's shirt, the frantic kunoichi cried out, "Stupid! You-"

Slowly hanging his own forehead down upon her other shoulder, the ink-user's voice gradually tailed off, much like his waning consciousness, "I believe…I have…returned…the…fa...vor…"

Sakura's grip tightened as tears stained her cheeks and the man's uniform, her suddenly trembling voice muffled under his still chest, "You _stupid bastard_…"

* * *

"Ah! You're awake!" Naruto all but bellowed, his voice hurting the ears of the one, who tried to sit up between those crisp white seats of his hospital bed.

Ino hip-checked the excited blonde out of the way as she eagerly pushed her own presence in front of the hospital gowned individual before them, "Oh my god, Sai! How're you feeling?!"

"Not well," Sai hoarsely admitted as he tried to steady himself in his place, the catheter in his arm hampering him from doing so fully.

"Sakura will be relieved at the news," Yamato spoke up from his place standing by the door, Shizune standing a _safe_ distance to his side.

Dark eyes surveyed the small crowd in his section of the curtained off space, "What has happened?"

Ino, who hadn't even been there, relayed the events, "You saved Forehead's ass. _That's what_." Crossing her arms and huffing, she added with full blown irritation, "If she hadn't of been goofing off-"

"She was saving a little girl from a Cloud-nin!" Naruto barked, with his own irritation rising.

The kunoichi pressed on however, completely disregarding that tidbit, "If she had been a little more careful, then poor Sai wouldn't have ended up a human pincushion in the first place!"

Naruto rolled his eyes as Yamato spoke up from behind them, "Regardless, I'm glad to see you up and about, Sai."

"Yes," Shizune added, with a slight frown, "It's too bad you hadn't woken a few minutes earlier. I had just recently forced her home."

"Yeah," Naruto frowned as well from his space standing by Sai's shoulder, "Sakura-chan felt really bad about what happened and wouldn't go home when we brought you in yesterday. She ended up spending the night here." Patting Sai's shoulder Naruto added, "Man, if you would have died, she would have totally blamed herself."

"And for good reason!" Ino scowled.

"Now, now," Shizune began, going about steering the two out of the room, "It's time to change his clothes. Besides, it's best to let him rest more at this point."

"Senpai sends his regards. He was here earlier, but was called away to the Hokage's office just before Sakura went home," Yamato explained as he made his own way out of the room behind the three.

Naruto called over his shoulder before the door was shut, "I'll be sure to tell Sakura-chan you're ok, Sai!"

* * *

Opening his eyes for the second time that day, like the last, he found himself not alone as the woman beside him sliced up an apple to his side.

"You look like shit," The kunoichi sitting on the stool told him as she placed the cut pieces onto the plate resting on her aproned lap.

Looking over the dark circles under the female's eyes, Sai remarked while slowly sitting up, "It seems you are equally lacking in physical appearance. But then again that is only natura-"

"Here," The blank faced kunoichi cut him off, the plate of fruit being thrust out to his reach.

Feeling hungry himself, with hospital food not ranking high in his desired favorites, Sai took the offering with his usual smile.

Sakura took that as her queue to leave, but not without giving the words she had wanted to say as she grasped the room's doorknob in her hand, her back to him, "We're even now. So, don't feel you ever have to do that again."

And then, she was gone.


	8. The Face of Innocense

_**The Face of Innocence**_

Sakura strolled toward her teammate working the fields with their client's daughter gripping her hand at her side, the little, ten year old girl with red pigtails smiling as their hair whipped in the wind around their shoulders.

A shirtless Naruto paused in his activities, turning his sweaty body in their direction as the kunoichi and her little companion came up from behind, their crackling steps and Sakura's chakra having alerted him to their presence. Mouth cottony and lips suitably parched, the kyuubi-container relinquished his hold on the fifty or so kagebushin currently cutting grain with wind-chakra enhanced kunai as he exclaimed, "Time to call it quits for the day, eh?"

Umibiya Saya nodded, the long fringe covering her blind eyes bouncing with the act, as the orange-red sky of late evening hovered above, "Y-Yes."

They had been sent to the village of Kaguya for the kunoichi's medical skills, the village elder -the little girl's grandfather- having taken on a strange disease. The disease itself wasn't transferable, but it was life-threatening to the one who had contracted it all the same. She was sure that last batch of herbal drink would do the trick, however.

And, of course, since the two male shinobi weren't medically inclined, they had done what they could to help out the village in their own way –Naruto having volunteered their services to harvest the family's wheat fields. Sai hadn't seemed to care either way and had stepped up without argument.

Sakura figured it was better than sitting around on their asses, waiting for her various experimental remedies to take effect.

Thinking of their third, Sakura looked around their surroundings not seeing him, "Where'd Sai go off to?"

Wiping his brow with the back of a tan forearm, the blonde replied with a pant from his arduous work, "Ah, he should be in the barn." Nodding to the trail of moving bales his clones had left behind, he tiredly added, "Just follow the mice and you'll find him."

After Naruto wiped a hand on the back of his pants, Sakura transferred the smiling girl's grip to the blonde, saying with her own smile, "Well, Saya-chan here wanted to come get you guys for dinner. So, I'll let her _Nii-chan_ take her back while I go get our scary other half."

Sakura started toward the opened doors of the barn many feet away as the timid voice of the little girl spoke to her teammate, "I-I hope you like chicken and dumplings, Naruto-nii-chan. I-I helped Okaa-san make it. I didn't burn myself at all this time."

Sakura rolled her eyes as Naruto's voice became distant, "Wow, you do even better than Sakura-chan does."

* * *

"Hey," A smirking figure, leaning on the edge of an opened barn door, spoke up from behind the turned away male within, who was currently lost in the activity of stacking bales before her, "Decided to work in here to keep from getting burnt, did you?"

The sweat-drenched, shirtless male continued on with his gloved hands tossing another bundled mass of hay on top of the others that were neatly stacked around him, "Something to that effect. Yes."

Sakura watched the muscles of his back rippled under his pale flesh as he bent over to take another bundle from his line of working mice. The kunoichi inwardly smirked.

_I'll admit he's decent eye-candy. _

That inward smirk frowned.

_If only he could grow a damn personality._

Then those imaginary eyes rolled.

_He's lucky women like Ino don't seem to care about all that._

Sai turned to the frowning woman, who was currently looking through him, "Is there a reason you have decided to drop in?" His bland lips took on a smirk, "Or are you simply content to gawk?"

Sakura came back to herself with a scowl, "Stuff it, you bastard." Turning away, the kunoichi gave over a shoulder, "Come on, quitting time."

* * *

Sakura sat behind Saya-chan on the steps of the porch, the brush in her hand sweeping through the girls free-flowing, silky locks as Naruto sat on one side and Sai on the other, their clothes back in their proper place.

"How's Umibiya-san doing?" Naruto asked, after a sip of his lemonade.

Sakura smiled as the little girl under her ministrations replied for her, "O-Ojii-san is doing well now thanks to Sakura-nee-chan." Hands playing in her own doll's yarn-like hair, the redhead added, "H-Her last remedy seems to be taking effect on the-" The girl paused as her unseen brow knitted, trying to remember what the kunoichi had called the condition.

"Bronchial Infection," Sakura helpfully supplied as she continued to brush the ends of the girl's locks.

"Y-Yes, that." The girl smiled brightly.

After setting down the third empty glass beside a thigh, Naruto leaned back on his hands as he sighed contently, "Well, that's good to hear."

Hearing the familiar scrit-scrit at her other side, Saya-chan commented, "M-My real Nii-san used to like to draw. But, he wasn't so good. At least, that's what he would say." Hands roaming over the blank slate that was her dolly's face, the girl said quietly, "H-He used to draw the faces for my little friends. A-And even though I couldn't see them, I knew they were beautiful."

Continuing in his work of drawing the half-worked landscape before them, Sai asked, his eyes still on his paper, "How did he die?"

"Sai!" Naruto and Sakura reprimanded in turn, but the little girl merely hummed.

"I-It's ok. He is in a better place now." With Sai having paused, currently looking over to the faceless doll in Saya-chan's hands, the little girl explained without a hint of sadness, "N-Nii-san drowned after having saved me last year during the great flood. H-He's watching over me now." Looking up to the woman whose smell reminded her of her mother, the little girl said brightly, "Okaa-san says so too."

Naruto, who had been merely quietly listening for once, ruffled the girl's hair giving a, "I'm sure he is," making the little one giggle as Sakura barked at him for messing up her work.

Sakura soon changed the subject to lighter venues: the great taste of their dinner and how Naruto had hogged most of the desert afterward.

A few moments later Naruto's, "Oh man, I gotta piss," was met by Sakura's fist as she bodily chastised the fool for his lack of tact in front of two ladies.

An abused Naruto had apologized after being forced to do so, before he had finally headed off in search of the family bathroom.

Laying down his sketchbook to his side, Sai turned to his other, gaze on the doll still held in the girl's grasp.

Sakura followed his eye-line as she set about redoing her work again, but then paused as she watched him continue to stare. Something stirred within the kunoichi as she heard the other quietly offer his services to the worn and dirtied toy of sorts that he couldn't seem to tear his gaze from, "Even though I am not your Nii-san, I could…"

The girl slowly handed her treasured item to Sakura's teammate with a whisper and a wide beam, speaking of Naruto's earlier comment of their silent partner being scary when they had first met her, "I-I just knew you weren't like that. Y-You're actually very nice, just like I thought. J-Just like Nii-san." Sakura's gaze grew doe-eyed as that child softly added, the image of her elder brother before Saya-chan's unseeing eyes, "Y-You even smell like him, like Ink and paper."

Sai paused with his brush inches from the faceless doll he had taken as he stared curiously at that wide set smile sent his way. Instead of commenting, he merely asked, "What would you like your companion to look like?"

Saya-chan's lips lifted as she wondrously replied without her usual stutter, "Like an angel."

Sakura sat quietly observing the events, an outsider, as Sai looked over the girl for a hard, long moment before deciding. Then the brush in his hand began its magic just as his lips moved… with his gaze fixated on the smiling little one before him, "I believe I can do that."

* * *

Saya's mother looked around the meager living area with a quirked brow, "Now where did that child wonder off to now?"

Sakura asked, coming out of the side sliding door with a fresh set of clothes on and her damp hair wrapped in a towel, "Are you looking for your daughter?"

"Yes," The kindhearted woman in her forties gave an exasperated sigh, "Its hours past her bedtime and I just cannot find her." Shaking her head with a smile, the older female laughed, "You would think that with the loss of her sight, she wouldn't be able to get away from such things, but she's crafty, that one."

Sakura laughed, before asking with a smirk, "Are the boys missing as well?"

Yumiko-san's features gave an enlightened look, "You know what, I bet that little munchkin's bothering your teammates again. You'll have to forgive her. There aren't many children her age around these parts, and," The woman frowned before continuing, "I see that your one friend likes to draw. Our Toshiro used to do the same." A far off look over came her saddened eyes, "She used to love sitting beside him as he drew his pictures. She used to chatter constantly, asking things like, what he was drawing, what colors he was using, why he was drawing it…"

Sakura took the woman's pause to speak up with a knowing smile, "Well, don't worry Yumiko-san, I think I know where she is and she's not bothering them at all." Already heading to the door leading to the outside, Sakura gave over her shoulder, "I'll go get her."

* * *

Coming upon the three shadowed figures, underneath the large peach tree of the family's backyard, Sakura found her guess to be correct. What she saw as she neared made a hand come up to her mouth, trying to stifle her giggles as the three before her continued to sleep on unawares.

Somehow Saya-chan had settled herself in Sai's lap. And equally strange, Naruto had fallen asleep with a half eaten peach in his hand. But what made the scene so comical was that apparently sometime after the blonde had dozed off in mid snack, his head had lolled onto Sai's shoulder…and Sai's onto his.

They looked like the perfect gay couple to Sakura in that moment with adopted child thrown into the mix. Fully giggling now, Sakura shook her head as Sai was the first to wake. Trying to stifle her giggles turned full blown laughter; the kunoichi spoke up from behind her hands just as Sai noticed the blonde bit of hair beneath his cheek with a scowl.

Forcing Naruto's head away with the back of a hand, Sai began to immediately get up.

However, the tight hold the little girl had on the front of his shirt and the sleepy words slipping from her lips stilled his movements, "Nii-san...Saya's still tired."

Sakura let slip a quiet, "Aw," as Sai clearly looked to her for help.

However, Sakura merely giggled again as Naruto finally woke up.

A sleepy, "Wa-," got out of his mouth, before Sakura shoved a hand over his flapping lips.

After watching the kunoichi nod to the sleeping girl beside him, Naruto got the picture.

Sakura relinquished her hand as Naruto quietly got up with a whispered, "Come on, let's put her to bed," to the poor man beside him.

After looking down at the girl in his arms, Sai went about gently cradling her body as he moved to get up, the girl's hands easily going around his neck, in a sleepy embrace, like she had done it a thousand times.

As they started walking back to the house, Sakura heard the breathy sigh slipping from those innocent lips, her words hitting her heart, like an arrow to wood, "I've missed you… Nii-san."

Naruto, senses too clouded by the haze of sleep, continued to trudge on unaware, but Sakura wasn't so blinded.

She noticed Sai's reaction alright.

That gentle squeeze of his hands on the girl's limbs was revealing enough.

The innocence of a child had been known to move many a hardened shinobi and apparently it had moved the man beside her as well.

Sakura's features took on a smile as she brought up the rear of the four heading back into the house.


	9. The Weight of Sentiment

_**The Weight of Sentiment **_

Billowing clouds of ash and soot rolled across the decimated village below the three shinobi standing atop a Cliffside, the illumination of the moon and the still burning fires covering the village being their only source of light under the darkened sky –an otherwise calm night marred by the stench of death hanging so heavily before them.

Sakura's knees hit the ground hard, her body going numb as her eyes forced back the tears that threatened to spill over her pinched features.

Her stomach clenched as her gaze fell across the charred remains of an adult and a child, two hapless victims of a massive fire jutsu, face down on the outskirts of the village -the older body vainly huddled over the smaller. The moment her watery gaze recognizable a certain doll in the child's grip, still held even in death, the kunoichi looked away as a traitorous tear spilled down her cheek.

_Goddamn it…_

Feeling Naruto's own anguished squeeze of her shoulder on her right, another hand seemingly gripped her heart as a grave emotion weighed heavily on her soul.

_Too late… _Hokage-sama had received word of rogue-nin wandering in their very own backyard… too late. They had received the message for assistance from these very people only hours before…much, much too late.

Kneeling there with the noxious fumes assaulting her senses, with the wind wiping her hair, Sakura found herself wishing that her own emotions were lacking, like the pale man on her other side, who she _just knew_ merely looked on with the iris of his eyes having dulled, that shine having extinguished like the light of the sun before nightfall.

Naruto retracted his heavy touch as Sakura began to stand, the kunoichi purposefully wiping her traitorous features with the backs of her hands.

Now was not the time for mourning. That time would come later; the world weary woman knew this to be true.

Determination flowing through Naruto's grown and muscled body, that bit of his own despair vanished with it. His voice that came out was headstrong and sure, a tone that would not take _no_ for an answer, "We're not leaving until-"

"We take care of each and every last one of them," Sakura finished, with her own firm resolution as the flames of bloodthirsty revenge flickered inwardly, much like the ones dancing in her pupils from the burning pit of sadness below.

And much to her surprise, brush already scribbling across an unfurled scroll, Sai gave his own thoughts on the matter, "_Indeed_."

As the inked bird took flight with news of the saddened loss and their intentions hanging from its claw, Sakura chanced a glance toward the pale man to her side.

What she saw in those dark orbs, half-shadowed beneath even darker hair, floored her, for the look in the other's gaze clearly betrayed her own: anger with a burning side of vengeance.

* * *

A hand, whose shredded gloved fingers were crusting over with blood not her own, shakily hovered above as the kunoichi's dirtied thumb and forefinger circled that peaceful bit of moon in the sky, a numb feeling flowing through her stretched out limbs.

Laying in one of the many craters her own fists had formed, the woman, laying spaces away from the body-shaped hole to her right, continued to look upon the sky with blank features, before fisting that trembling appendage in the air.

Her justice hadn't come swift and her opponent had been utterly lacking. Her choked questions of: why that village and why that little girl had gone unanswered.

At least, her ears hadn't registered anything but the morbidly satisfying grunts and screams of the one crying for mercy underneath her savagery. The only thing in her mind had been dishing out her own form of retribution for the souls that were lost that night, one in particular, a true member of all that was Fire Country.

Suddenly a shadow loomed over her empty features, blocking out the moon from overhead.

"I see you are finished here as well," An equally bloodied and stone-faced Sai commented as his sandaled feet tiredly moved to her side.

Sakura stayed her place, laying that still slightly quivering hand upon her stomach as the shinobi quietly took a seat on the bit of cracked ground she had called her own –a bit of land that would no longer be tilled.

The far off sound of thunderous battle provoked her own lips to move in that moment, "Seems Naruto's taking his time."

'_Just as I did,'_ the kunoichi inwardly added, feeling no remorse for what her own hands had done.

Content to keep laying there, Sakura felt sure that questioning if their third was in harm's way wasn't needed. These weren't the type of shinobi that had even come close to threatening their skill. They were just trash, mere gutter-spawn that, by their actions, had hoped to make a name for themselves by raising chaos and causing destruction wherever they went.

Unfortunately, the three wandering rogue-nin had picked the wrong playground to have their bit of fun in. The _Will of Fire_ burned brightly in those of that land and even brighter in the three who had come calling.

A long hush, punctuated by the occasional rumble from a distance, stretched on as the two figures sat amongst the chaos and death, merely taking their own form of comfort in each other's presence. Again, Sakura found herself thankful for the other's silence.

After a while the faraway sounds subsided giving way to the sound of crunching gravel from behind the two. However, neither sitting shinobi moved, feeling that bit of familiar chakra originating from their third.

The blonde newcomer heavily sat down on Sakura's other side, before running his own blood-covered hands through his hair, not even caring about the pinkish streaks left in their wake.

"How long's it been?" Naruto ground out with a steely jaw and an even harder set of eyes to the sky.

"Two months," Sai quietly replied, his own gaze on a flashing star above.

Lifting an arm to press into the backs of her suddenly damp lids, the kunoichi fought back the tremble that threatened her voice as the image of a little hand waving goodbye next to her Ojii-san haunted her mind's eye, "She'd made us promise to come back and visit, didn't she?"

"That she did," Naruto trailed off, turning away, while forcing back the anguish that seemed to clog his throat in that moment; his own thoughts on the little girl, who sorely didn't deserve the hand she and her family had been dealt. Salty tears leaking from his suddenly squeezed eyes, he clearly recalled the surprise he had felt at that small kiss she had given his cheek, before she had finally let them leave.

Sai's own brow stitched together as he recalled the way the girl had suddenly gravitated to his side throughout the remainder of their stay. He could almost feel the hug his side had received and hear the name she had called him before they had left her crying into her Ojii-san's side at the edge of that very village back then.

Looking down at the blood staining his fingers, the ink-user quietly commented as he pretended not to hear the sound of silent weeping coming from his two comrades in arms beside him, "A prayer should be given after the burial."

Naruto, still looking away, rubbed his eyes with the back of his sleeve, "Yeah."

Sakura lifted an arm slightly, her water-clouded gaze taking in the image of the man frowning at his bloodied hands beside her.

* * *

As the moon began to hide behind the crest of the earth, a burnt doll was placed beside a grave as three shinobi stood around the makeshift pile of rocks, the field they had worked having now turned graveyard.

After the silence of their prayers and an even longer pause afterward, Naruto sniffed and wiped his eyes, before finally forcing himself away just as Sakura was about to do the same. However, the mourning kunoichi stilled as their third's lips slowly began to move, "At least," She heard and watched him pause for a lengthy moment before continuing, "You are together with your true Nii-san now."

Sakura had surprisingly found the muscles in her right hand twitching to reach out to him during that pause. However, that hand clenched into a fist as he merely turned to her with that usual blank mask in place. Seeing it made something inside the kunoichi snap as she suddenly lashed out at him, grabbing his shirt by the front in both her trembling hands, as she yelled in his impassive face, "Goddamn it! Don't _do_ that!"

Naruto quickly moved to try to pull the frantic woman off the other as the kunoichi continued to scream with watering eyes, "You cared about that little girl, just like the rest of us! I know you did! You shouldn't be smiling you stupid bastard! You should be fucking crying! A normal person would be- ! But you-!"

Hanging onto the man's shirt as her head dropped in defeat, Sakura sobbed uncontrollably into the man's chest as Naruto hugged her firmly from behind, his whiskered cheek pressed tightly to her heaving back.

Sai's expression gave way to creased brows as he slowly placed his hands on the woman's shaking shoulders before him. They knit even further as her next anguished cry was reverberated throughout the front of his soiled uniform, "You don't have to do that shit anymore. Don't you understand? You don't have to hide anything anymore!" Tightening her hold on his shirt, she rasped with her heart breaking for herself, for Naruto, for those that were lost that night, and for the man before her, who still hadn't shed a single tear the entire time they had known him, "Damn it, Sai! Y-You don't have to hold it in anymore."

Naruto finally let her go as he moved to their side, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and his other around Sai's in the process. His words voiced her own sentiment as his chin dropped to the top of the bawling kunoichi's head, "Not with us you don't." Naruto tightened his hold on the back of Sai's neck as the ink-user bowed his own head to the crying woman's, "We're family remember."

His eyes may have remained dry that night, but Sai was sure of one thing. He would never forget the way he felt in that moment. Never.


	10. An Outside View

_**An Outside View**_

"I-I-Its f-f-f-reezing i-i-in h-h-here," Naruto managed to rasp behind chattering teeth, his wet body stripped down to his green froggy boxers, with his shivering form hidden underneath three layers of blanket.

"S-S-Shut up, S-S-Stupid. I-I-It's your o-o-own f-f-fault," Sakura, in only bindings and panties, managed to growl out from her place behind Naruto, with Sai's equally ice-cold body, in black boxers, forming to her own from behind.

"Well," Kakashi spoke up from behind his pages, his back to the wooden wall of the unfurnished hotel of sorts for the night, "Actually, the blame should be spread evenly among you three."

"Well," Yamato chuckled, from his place laid out under the wooden roof his jutsu had created, off to the side, "In Sai's defense, he did get pulled under by Naruto."

"Yes, but I believe he then grabbed a hold of Sakura in his descent." Kakashi countered with mild amusement lighting his voice, his eye-crease visibly seen over the tops of his pages.

Yamato chuckled some more with a relenting nod, "Well, yeah, there is that."

"I-I-Its n-n-ot f-f-funny, d-d-damn it!" Naruto barked at the two older men, who were obviously finding humor in their situation as he gripped the blankets tighter around him.

"S-S-Stop h-h-hogging the c-c-covers, S-S-Stupid!" Sakura yelled as her trembling fingers pulled back on her bit of the stacked material.

Sai merely shivered in his place quietly, making sure to keep his hands in the designated areas that had been mapped out to him prior: the top of her hip and-

Well, that was about it.

Sakura was nowhere near happy with her current situation, but she had to admit that it was ten times better than drowning, underneath the ice that wind and water natured missing-nin -from mist- had created.

Luckily their Taichou had sent them a lifeline to cling to, that being a wooden extension that he had used to reel them back to dry and thankfully warm land –the ability to form chakra having been null and void for them in the sub zero waters.

Unfortunately, having to rough it in the middle of the forest, even though the ever skillful Yamato was with them, their current shelter lacked central heat. So, they were left to use whatever they had at their disposable to warm themselves: body heat and each other's blankets.

For their positioning, Sakura had chosen the lesser of two evils, that being: hugging Naruto instead of his hands roaming where they shouldn't on her own person. She wasn't too worried about the man behind her. She had it on good authority that in Sai's eyes, she looked just like any other male to him -that bit of information having come from his very own mouth beforehand.

After she had hit the cheeky bastard, she had at least felt better about the whole situation –a little.

However, as a tired, yet restless Naruto suddenly flopped over on his side, facing her, Sakura found herself not so comfortable. Scowling, she turned away, but then found herself face to face with a smiling Idiot.

Her bland look gave way to even blander words as her icy fingers prodded his pasty bit of chest to move, "T-T-Turn o-o-over, y-y-you b-b-bastard."

Sai genially did as was so nicely asked, raising a brow at the woman's arms that shot out and wrapped around him, clearly not going by the map the kunoichi had set up herself.

As Sakura felt Naruto do much the same around her own form, the on guard woman forewarned, "T-T-Touch a-a-anything i-i-important and I-I-I'll k-k-kill y-y-you i-i-in y-y-your s-s-s-leep."

Naruto, exhausted from the cold and their earlier activities, merely chattered out with his lashes already lowering, "T-T-Too t-t-tired. Y-Y-You're s-s-safe f-f-for t-t-tonight."

Sakura, suddenly sleepy as well, gave a stuttered out, "Better be," as she slowly gave in to the sandman, unconsciously tightening her hold on her makeshift heated water bottle of sorts that was Sai.

The dark haired man, with his head on his pillow, merely looked down toward the female's arms with a blank look before closing his eyes, letting the embrace of sleep grip him as well.

After several minutes passed, the sounds of loud snoring came from Naruto's direction as Sakura's deep breathing blew in and out onto the back of a sleeping Sai's neck.

Yamato spoke up to his masked leader quietly, "You hear about that last mission of theirs?"

Kakashi replied without lowering his book, "If you're speaking of the events that happened in Kaguya, then yes."

"Suppose that's why there's a different air between them, eh?" Yamato commented with a frown, speaking mainly to himself.

However, Kakashi chose to answer, his own eye on the sleeping shinobi before them, "I would have to venture a yes," Then his gaze slid to a certain kunoichi's grip under those blankets, "And a no."

Yamato merely raised a quizzical eyebrow, clearly at a loss as his Senpai went back to his reading.


	11. The Great Escape

_**The Great Escape**_

Sakura looked up from her medical books as a chair was pulled out, from under her table, across from her. Turning a weary brow upon her dark haired teammate, the kunoichi nodded toward the stack of books he was currently laying down, "Self help, erotica, or art?"

"The first," Sai replied with a smile as he went about sitting down, pulling the top hardback toward him.

Sakura read its title out loud with a tilt of her head, while laying down her own acupuncture manual, "Stage Presence and how to obtain it." After the man merely cracked open his book across from her, the kunoichi righted her head, going back to her own business with a quiet laugh, "Getting ready for your part in the festival, I take it?"

"Yes," Sai replied with a frown.

After marking her space, Sakura looked back up with a smile, "I still can't believe Gai-sensei roped you two into participating in this year's Festival of Arts show." Shaking her head with humor, she asked lightly, "What exactly are you guys doing again?"

Sai answered with that frown lingering, "Gai-sensei said it was a form of performing arts, but it is actually a form of hand to hand combat." The crease between Sai's brows deepened as he added, "Because our movements are scripted, he says it is more like that of a dance."

"I take it you don't like that, eh?" Sakura snorted.

Her reply was a dry, "No," before Sai looked to her for help, "I do not understand what it is meant by _playing to the crowd_. Do you understand this saying, Sakura?"

The kunoichi stifled yet another laugh as she looked over his slightly confused features, "Did Gai-sensei say you needed to work on that?"

Sakura watched that previous crease of his features return as he nodded, "Yes, but I cannot right something that I do not understand."

Just imagining the kyuubi-container trying to explain that tidbit, Sakura asked with a barely suppressed giggle, "Did you ask Naruto?"

"Yes, but-"

"He wasn't much help was he?" Sakura chortled.

As Sai frowned yet again, the female across from him sighed as she admitted, "Well, there's not so much I can tell you really without actually knowing or seeing what you have to do, but basically it means carrying yourself in a way or doing things during your performance that will," She paused while searching for the right word, "_please_ the crowd."

"Then I have to ask you the same question I have asked Gai-sensei," Sai shook his head, "I still do not understand that meaning in this context. Is what we are doing not combat?"

Sakura paused to think of a reply as a flash of blonde coming toward them made her own lips turn down, "Here comes trouble."

"Hm?" Sai hummed as he turned around, following Sakura's eye-line.

Sakura watched her teammate put on his usual mask, smiling inwardly, as the other woman neared with an overly enthusiastic, "Wow, funny seeing you two here!"

"What are you doing here?" Sakura's lips formed a smirk as she added, "Didn't know you'd moved past picture books finally, Ino-Pig."

Faced with the object of her amorous thoughts, Ino merely brushed the other woman's quip off as she brushed invisible lint from a shoulder, while standing off to Sai's left with a hand on the male shinobi's own shoulder, "I'll let that go," Looking at her nails, the blonde added, "Seeing as how I'm the better woman and all that." Then, looking to Sai, the mind specialist tried to keep her smile as Sai went about nonchalantly removing the kunoichi's hand on his shoulder, "I just came to pick up some reference materials for my father, but I'm glad to see you're here too, Sai," A glare at the other, "Even _if_ Forehead's here." Looking down at the blank-faced man, Ino asked, "What'cha reading about, Sai?"

Before Sai could answer, Sakura took it upon herself to reply, "He's doing research for the festival." Giving Ino a pointed look, the kunoichi crossed her arms, while leaning back in her seat, "So, why don't you run along now and let him be."

The two women glared at each other as Sai finally spoke up, after having collected his books and going about to stand, "Actually, Sakura was just about to help me in a practical session with my performance."

Sakura raised a brow. _I was?_ But then, quickly recovered as she too began to collect her things and stand. Giving the other kunoichi a smug, "Well, guess we'll see you later, Pig," Sakura turned away with a little wave, completely feeling the burning glare assaulting the back of her head as she trotted off with her teammate in tow.

Heading out through the lobby's doors, Sakura gave a laugh, "Wow, she looked pissed." Then turning to her impassive teammate, the kunoichi asked lightly, "Why'd you lie, Sai?"

"It was not a lie per say," With the two of them walking along through the village's main road, her teammate gave a smile –that bordered on arrogant in Sakura's book- before continuing, "I was in the process of asking you before you're friend came along."

Sakura threw back an unimpressed look with her tone bordering on the same, "So you just thought I'd drop whatever I was doing and come help?"

Another smile.

With a heavy sigh, Sakura tried to portray the act of irritation even as the twitch of her lips betrayed her, "Come on, you bastard. Let's get this over with."


	12. Rivals and Tribulations

_**Rivals and Tribulations**_

A woman sat on a large pillow-like cushion with her back to a hanging wall scroll that read _Konoha Festival of Arts _on a wide, wooden, black-lacquered stage lit by numerous rows of candles on its two edges; a single white bandana'ed drummer positioned in the four corners of the raised bit of flooring.

Sakura thought Kurenai looked beautiful in that red and white kimono, with her long, silky, black locks swept up in an array of colorful pins and combs. Sakura found herself entranced with the way the torch light, from the two floor standing torches on either side of the woman's sitting position, flickered in the female's ruby eyes as she held a shining, silver flute tightly to her lips.

Catcalls came from the women and loud whooping came from the men and children in the crowd as four individuals walked up the back steps onto the platform of sorts before them, their final positions being at the edge of the stage in a single line.

Sakura shook her head next to her three female friends, from the old Rookie Nine, as an overly excited Ino, who had latched onto her arm and began to shake it in her excitement exclaimed, "Oh good god, Forehead! Oh my god! They all look so hot!"

Of course, Sakura was a kunoichi…and she sorely had to agree.

Each man wore nothing but black flowing pants tied at the waist with a white sash that matched the equally white material covering their feet. The shirtless males each sported a black head wrap that tied at the back, its sheer material hanging down between their sculpted shoulder blades. Their hands were wrapped in black binding that stopped at the middle of their forearms. Pale met tan on that stage as Lee, Sai, Naruto, and Neji stood side by side, each male's defined chest and torso splayed with inked Kanji that spelled out the word F-I-R-E.

Sakura sent a little wave to her two men as the four bowed to the gathered spectators, before three of them went to kneel before Kurenai, their backs straight as a board with their fists resting on their thighs facing the crowd.

The kunoichi smirked as Naruto, standing center stage, struck a fist to a palm and bowed once more, before Kurenai's single breath into her instrument started the show. With that beautiful melody came the sound of drums. The moment the four musicians' chanting began, the blonde's body began to move to the beat, his hands and feet in fluid martial art motion.

"Wow, never thought I'd say this, but, Hinata, you're one lucky lady," Ino breathed in wonder as Naruto did a serious of back flips, before taking up yet another stance with hands striking out at an invisible opponent.

"_Sh_," Sakura hissed as Hinata, blushing beside the pink haired woman, stuttered out a, "T-Thank you. I-I think."

As the tempo of the drums picked up its pace and the chanting became louder, she watched Sai jump to his feet and rush forward to engage the other man in staged combat.

It was pure poetry in motion as her two favorite men began to spar on stage, each hit, each kick, each sweep of the leg set to the music around them.

"Wow, Sai looks so hot." The flapping lips of the woman on Sakura's other side continued on, "I'd like to lick the sweat off his-"

The blonde was effectively shut up by a sharp hit to the back of her ponytailed head.

"What the hell, Forehead?!" Ino barked as TenTen gave an appreciative hum on the Yamanaka's other side, "Mm, lady's gotta point though."

Watching Lee spring up to join in the fray of battle, Sakura snorted with derision, "Shouldn't your eyes be on a certain Hyuuga?"

The woman with the two buns on her head merely gave a laugh, "He's not up yet, so the rest are free range at the moment."

Sakura shook her head, giving an amused, "You're terrible," just as Sai blocked both Naruto and Lee's attacks with a raised and lowered hand, before dropping and sweeping a leg out in an attempt to knock his opponents off balance.

"She's terrible?" Ino snidely asked as she reprimped the back of her hair, "_You're_ terrible."

Hearing Tenten cheer as Neji finally took his turn to jump forward, Sakura asked, "How do you mean?"

The blonde woman on her other side gave a snort, "You're doing exactly what you did to Naruto to Sai."

Sakura finally pried her attention away from the stage to the smug woman beside her, with a quirked brow and an even more confused tone, "What the hell are you going on about now, Ino-Pig?"

Ino crossed her arms as the crowd cheered for the massive four-way theatrics going on onstage that were highlighted only by the glowing fires around them, "You know what I mean. Saying you don't want him, but still keeping him all to yourself." Challengingly leaning closer, the blonde gave an arrogant, "_That's what_," that was barely heard under the thunderous applause that erupted around them, after Neji's fists struck out at all three of his opponenets in a blur to the now wild beat.

Suitably provoked, never one to back down from her supposed rival's challenges, Sakura crossed her arms and leaned forward herself, "It's not my fault the bastard never looks your way. Maybe you should work on that personality of yours."

Ino, severely angry, pressed her forehead to Sakura's hard, "Oh yeah?" Grinding their brows together the kunoichi all but snarled, "Well, maybe you should find some miracle jutsu for that flat chest of yours?!"

"Hey, hey!" Sakura felt Hinata's hands on her arms as Ino felt the same from TenTen; the weapon master's weary voice breaking through the tension, "Not again. Come on. Break it up, you two!"

With both women begrudgingly pulling away, Ino huffed, while crossing her arms over her chest, agitated gaze back on the climax of their entertainment before them, "If you don't want him, then stop butting in all the time. Let someone else have a chance at him."

"I don't _butt in_ and you don't have a chance." Sakura calmly replied as her gaze hovered over the panting man in question, who was currently bowing in the males' line of four to the crowd –their performance having come to an end.

"_Oh yeah_?" Ino retorted as three of the four shinobi jumped down from the raised platform. With the sweaty, shirtless males heading their way, the blonde added snidely to Sakura, behind that wide set smile sent to her pale teammate looking their way, "Maybe I would, if you weren't always around him all the time. And don't give me that, 'but he's my teammate' bull."

Sakura blew out a, "Whatever," in turn, flicking her gaze from a scowling Sai, who was pushing Naruto's damp arm from around his shoulders as they approached, to the now empty stage over his shoulder.

However, her gaze was forced back to Sai's features as he came upon her asking, with Naruto giving Hinata a sweaty hug to her other side, "Did I perform adequately?"

Ino all but pushed her out of the way as she replied, with Neji talking quietly to a beaming Tenten on her other side, "You did great, Sai! You looked so cool and your outfit is so totally hot looking too!"

_The words, 'You're doing exactly what you did to Naruto to Sai,' _repeated in Sakura's ears as she looked upon that mask of creased eyes and upturned lips given in turn to her smitten rival, a sudden tightness forming in her chest.

The kunoichi pushed that unwanted feeling away, while giving a pat to the male's flushed shoulder with a hand, forcing her own smile upon her face, "You did great."

Sakura didn't see the male's lips fall as she turned away, nor did she see the way his slightly concerned gaze seemed to linger on her form as she made her way through the crowd, suddenly intent to be alone. However, her ears did register Ino words and that audible pull of her teammate's arm as she prodded him along, "Come on, Sai. Forget about that party-pooper. Let's go have some fun with the others."


	13. Rude Awakening

_**Rude Awakening**_

"Forehead, oh my god!" Ino called excitedly to the pink haired kunoichi coming through the flower shop's glass doors, from her spot behind the waist-high counter housing the electronic register she had been fiddling with.

Sakura gave the other's excited demeanor a tight smile, a list of the many bouquets needed to be ordered for the expectant mothers, in the hospital ward, in hand –the kunoichi doing a favor for her mentor. After having left Ino the way she had the night before, Sakura wasn't in much of a mood for small talk…especially if it had anything to do with her dark haired teammate.

The mother hen of sorts had realized, after hearing it from the blonde's mouth, that she had in fact been doing what she could to shelter the inept fool from other women, mainly her rival. Sakura had chalked it up to wanting to keep the emotionally naïve male from getting hurt or –a look at the flighty, smiling blonde before her- _used_.

Ino was known to move on from one male to the next at a drop of a dime. Yamanaka Ino was a beauty and she used her looks and charm to get what she wanted. And Sakura knew that when she was done with her men, she tossed them to the side. She had seen it so many times before. She was superficial and materialistic, just as Sakura had been in her youth, but yet… Sakura also knew Ino had a good side to her as well and they _were_ best friends –even if they both remained so competitive toward each other.

_Besides, there's no way that bastard would let himself fall prey to her schemes. -_A smirk- _Even he's not that stupid._

So, in the end, the kunoichi had come to terms with the facts. Sai was a grown man and she had absolutely no right to keep up her charade. Walking up to the counter, Sakura laid the order-sheet between them with a half interested air, "What is it now, Ino-pig? Hear another bit of juicy gossip you wanna spread?"

Ino's eyes almost sparkled with anticipation and as per her usual; she drew out the moment to heighten the climax, mysteriously relaying, "You'll never guess what happened last night."

Sakura raised a thin brow, suddenly finding herself not wanting to know.

Ino's answer came in the form of a quick lap around the counter, before launching herself into her rival, yet best friend's arms, screeching, "He finally said yes! Isn't this great?! Sai said yes!"

Sakura, highly confused and slightly worried, pulled the jubilant woman away from her with her hands on the Yamanaka's arms asking, "What exactly did Sai say yes to, Pig?"

Ino stopped her theatrics and crossed her arms, before giving her smug response with a higher than thou air, "Well, let's just say that one of us will die a spinster, while the other _won't_."

Sakura's hands dropped to her sides as she hollowly asked with a sudden weight in her stomach, completely thrown for a loop at her own troubled feelings on the matter, "What?"

Going back around to her side of the linoleum counter, the Yamanaka woman replied in a singsong voice, "He said he'd go out tonight with me!" Picking up the list on the counter, the female flicked her long flaxen locks over a shoulder with irritation, "About time really. Bastard sure took his time to come around." Then her eyes went back to their overly large excited state, "Oh, but he's such a cutie!" Holding the paper to her ample chest she crooned, "And soon he's gonna be all mine!"

The lift of Sakura's lips did not reach her eyes as they twitchily moved on her face, giving a blank, "Yeah," in return.

_Sai had…_

_But why would he…?_

_He doesn't…_

Sakura shook her head as she inwardly chastised her faulty questions. _Why do I care? It's his life. The bastard can do whatever the hell he wants to. -_A look at the blonde- _Or whoever he wants to._

Stamping down the sudden twinge in her chest at her own thoughts, Sakura's eyes turned to the woman before her, who was positively glowing as she looked over the list in her hands.

Unconsciously a hand fisted at her side. _This will be a good thing, damn it. I can finally get him out of my hair all the damn time. _

"Oh," Ino interrupted her internal thoughts with an afterthought of her own, "Well, he wouldn't come around until I mentioned there being other people around." Glaring at the pink haired female on the other side of her counter, the shop clerk added distastefully, "He only agreed after I promised to make you come along." Then waving that bit away with the paper flapping in her hand, Ino's tone turned offhanded, "So, I said I'd set you up with somebody. He seemed to like that idea." The aproned woman smirked smugly, "So, you better be free tonight. Like around eight. I said we'd meet him and whoever I got for you at the _Watering Hole_."

"_What_?" Sakura incredulously asked, sorely finding herself not comfortable with that particular idea for more reasons than one, the main being that blind dates set up by Ino always ended up in disaster for the poor kunoichi. Sakura shivered upon thinking about her friend's last attempts to be match maker with her and a stoic –and partly creepy- Shino. Yeah, that hadn't gone over so well –not at all.

Ino turned to the stunned woman, speaking slowly as if to an inept child, "You. Me. Sai. You're date. At the Watering Hole. Tonight at eight."

Sakura's lips automatically moved to negate that idea as her body equally moved to take her away from the situation, heading for the door, "I-I'm kinda busy tonight. So, I'll have to pass, but thanks for thinking about me. Bye."

Ino ran after her, catching her arm before Sakura could even reach the door. With big blue eyes of a true blue best friend, the flower shop clerk pleaded, "Oh come on, Sakura. Please? Please? Please? He only agreed to go out tonight since I said I'd drag you around." Next came the trembling lip with water glistening in those sapphire orbs that always seemed to snag the hearts of those she assaulted with that particular look, "Please, Sakura? My bestest gal-pal?"

Showing only half the true irritation she felt in her features and that same emotion leaking into her voice, the reluctant kunoichi asked, "Why does it have to be me, huh? I thought you didn't want me butting in? Why can't you just get Naruto and Hinata or TenTen and Neji."

Still holding onto her friend's forearm, Ino all but whined, "I _don't_ want you butting in, but he wouldn't say yes until I brought up the idea. Besides, Naruto's annoying and Neji's a damn stick in the mud." Pleading again, the desperate woman prodded with a smirk that bloomed with the end of her speech, "Come on, Sakura! I'll ask Kiba to come along for you," A leer, "I remember how you said you thought he was cute that one time."

"I was drunk and that was two years ago," Sakura deadpanned.

Ino didn't deter, however, "Yeah, but you _did_ say it. Besides, he does have that whole wild thing going for him. You know, if I wasn't so set on Sai I'd-"

"But you _are_." Sakura begrudgingly added with a glare.

"So will you come?" Ino asked with hopeful eyes.

Sakura strongly struggled with the decision during her long pause, before finally sighing, having been completely worn out by the woman before her. In the end, the pink haired kunoichi finally gave her consent…even against her better judgment, "Alright, damn it. Fine, I'll go."

"Great!" Ino beamed, while clapping her hands, finally letting her grip on the other female's arm go in the process.

Finally heading through the door, Sakura heard the words, "Feel free to leave whenever you want and don't be a damn sourpuss!" yelled in her direction just before the door closed behind her.

Standing out in the street now, Sakura's response slipped through her lips like the cold wind currently blowing through her hair and chilling her skin –not entirely sure if that chill down her spine was its doing or not, "Yeah."

_Right. _A small part of her mind added as she headed back to the Hokage Tower with dazed vision and equally clouded mind.


	14. Revelations That Suck

_**Revelations…That Suck**_

"_This_ is my _date_?" Kiba quirked a brow at the woman standing beside him as Akamaru wagged his large, white tail from underneath the table. Looking to the blonde female sitting across his way, the Inuzuka growled, "I thought you said you were setting me up with a _hottie_?!" He nodded to the woman known to cause bodily harm –who was glaring back with slit eyes- to his side, "What's with the _hothead_?!"

Ino, already latched on to a smiling Sai's arm beside her in the restaurant's booth, shrugged, "Meh, hottie, hothead," Rolling her blue eyes, the blonde shrugged, "Close enough."

Kiba immediately moved to get up to leave, but Sakura pushed him further into the booth with a hard shove and even harder words, "_Uh-uh_, Dog-boy." Begrudgingly sliding in next to him in the vinyl cushioned booth, the late kunoichi, in her usual black shorts and red tank, growled back, "If I gotta be stuck with the bimbo and the bastard, then I'm taking your sorry ass down _with me._"

Rolling his eyes at the pink haired kunoichi currently picking up a menu next to him, the slightly fanged male gave a heavy sigh of resignation, "Just _great_."

"Yeah, yeah," Sakura sarcastically intoned as she began to unfold the item in her hands. Eyes scanning its contents, she threw back at the fool without looking at him, "Nice to see _you too_, Kiba."

Sai gave his hello to the woman currently hiding behind her reading material, "Sakura."

The kunoichi in question merely gave a wave of a hand from behind the three-way fold out. She had her reasons for not looking his way, _huge _reasons that sorely disturbed her to no end.

"Did you get lost on your way over here, Forehead?" Ino asked, rather perturbed at the other woman -and at how Sai had just removed her arm from his own- before pointing out the obvious, "You're _late._"

Sakura, tardy by ten minutes, lowered her menu, her bland gaze looking over the top of its laminated pages –purposely not looking at the smiling, dark haired male in front of her, "I had a little business to take care of."

It wasn't a lie per say, she had, had things to take care of all right...like if she was actually going to show or not.

After leaving the Yamanaka earlier that day, the kunoichi had been forced to reevaluate her thoughts toward a certain smiling fool… and she hadn't liked what had come out of it. Not one bit at all. Those strange reactions that had cropped up and caught her completely off guard, after being told that her teammate may very well be interested in her airheaded best friend, completely pissed her off.

Green eyes flicked to the man, who was currently caught in conversation with a babbling blonde about his and Naruto's next erotic collaboration, and rolled.

_No. No way in hell. _Speaking of what her tainted mind had tried to tell her, after those previous emotions that had assaulted her in the flower shop, the kunoichi further inwardly disagreed. _Total and utter bullshit!_ No fucking way! No-no-no-no-no! I won't allow it!

"What? Did ya need to figure out who else's life to ruin on your way over here?" Kiba asked shooting her a snide sideways look.

The flimsy item in her hand went upside brown spikes then, "Shut up!" Going back to figuring out what she could stuff her face with during the rest of that hackle-raising event, the kunoichi added, "Idiot, I told you already. That's nobody's fault but you're own."

Sakura knew exactly why the Inuzuka clansman wasn't so forthcoming with the hospitality toward her. That reasoning rested entirely on the fact that Hinata was now with Naruto. Even after an entire year, the man beside her still held a grudge against her for giving way for the love between their two teammates to happen in the first place; for you see, the dolt had become smitten over the years with the timid speaking female –who could completely kick some ass when needed. However, Sakura sorely believed his ill fortune had nothing to do with herself at all.

"You should have told her," Sakura grumbled -for what she felt was the hundredth time that year- behind her printed words.

"And you should have fallen for that idiot of yours," Kiba threw back as he all but pouted with crossed arms and a huff, clearly speaking of one Uzumaki Naruto –that, even now, he couldn't find fault in, because they were actually pretty good friends.

However, he felt the kunoichi beside him was fair game to verbally poke and prod –much to Sakura's _great_ displeasure.

"Whatever, Dog-boy," Sakura replied, rolling her eyes behind her menu, knowing all too well that she only saw Naruto as a brother of sorts.

"Sakura, did Kakashi-sensei relay to you that our training for tomorrow has been canceled?" Sai slipped in between her and Kiba's lovely little conversation across from him, while nonchalantly removing Ino's death grip on his arm.

Sakura replied -to the one, who she was currently forcing herself to see as a brother in that moment –from behind her raised, protective barrier, "Yeah, yeah. He told me."

The moment Sakura heard the woman across from Kiba whisper something to her teammate, before giggling, -in Sakura's eyes- like a hyena, the kunoichi behind the menu abruptly lowered the item to the table with an audible slap and a heavy sigh, "Screw food, I suddenly feel like getting tanked."

"_Now_ you're talking!" Kiba added, while slapping the table himself with a hand, a wide toothy grin set on his pleased features. Of course, he too liked the idea of getting drunk to ease the burden of the four of them being stuck together.

As Ino continued on in her inane speech about the best stores in Konoha to find the perfect dress in, Sai looked to his teammate, completely ignoring the woman babbling at his side, "Alcohol consumption should be done in moderation, Sakura," as he nonchalantly removed yet another breach of his person –this time a bold hand on his thigh.

Waving the nearest waitress over, Sakura let slip an irritated, "Stuff it, you bastard," feeling her ill mood was his fault entirely.

* * *

An arm and a hand reached around the woman sitting beside it, to catch the waitress's attention walking by and none too quietly, "Hey, hey! Another round over here please!" Kiba, suitably pink in the face and red-eyed, nudged his equally sloshed competitor of sorts with a shoulder, after flopping back in his side of their seat –the drink having made his grudge holding mood overly friendly, "You can sure put 'em away can't 'cha, Sakura-_chan_?"

After the waitress brought them new bottles, clinking her newly filled cup of hot sake against his own, Sakura grinned, "Damn straight! I ain't Tsunade-sama's apprentice for nothin', you know."

"Sakura, you should-," Sai began.

But was cut off by a, "Shut your pie-hole," from the woman currently starting an arm wrestling match with the man to her side.

Ino's brow twitched a few times as her gaze incredulously roamed over the two drunken fools' competition across from her and their empty bottles littering their side of the table and her own, "Haven't you guys had enough?" Trying to give Sakura the eye, the blonde added, trying to make her point across with a raise of a brow, "Don't you have stuff to do, Forehead? Don't you have somewhere to go now, eh?"

Straining against her opponent's arm, the pink haired kunoichi grit out, "No, I don't." Then, after using a little chakra, Sakura slammed the back of Kiba's fist into the table, making the surface's contents rattle, "Ha! You suck!"

The drink leaving the Inuzuka's manly pride not so wounded, Kiba shook out his injured hand as he put his other arm around his newly found good buddy's shoulder, speaking of Ino's prior question, "Of course she don't! Me and her's got more to drink. Don't we?" Pinching the side of his new best friend's face, he asked happily, "Don't we, Sa-ku-ra?"

After batting his arm away from her person with the back of a hand, Sakura returned his action to his own red painted cheek, _hard_, "Of course, Ki-ba-kun."

"Sakura, I do not think that is a wise-" Sai began as the two idiots finally let go of each other's faces…after a tug of war of sorts, but was effectively cut off.

"Shut up," The hammered kunoichi, with the stinging cheek, paused as she chose one of the three Sai's she was currently seeing to point her cup at, "_You_." Talking to the Sai on the right, in her hazy vision, the woman continued, "I don't wanna hear a damn thing from the stupid peanut gallery, _got it_? I can do whatever the _hell_ I want, you bastard! With _whoever_ the hell I want." Wrapping an arm around Kiba's shoulders –who did much the same back to her, the clearly buzzed female added with a curt nod, "So there!"

Yes, when Haruno Sakura began to drink, unlike her mentor who became languid and nostalgic and unlike Lee who liked to break stuff, the fierceness in the woman stepped forward. It was a side of Sakura that Sai had seen many, many times before -before being left with the duty of lugging her unconscious body home. (It was also a side of Sakura that Naruto used to get her to participate in retarded challenges –like arm wrestling and eating competitions- much to Kakashi and Yamato's great entertainment.)

Looking over his teammate's challenging stare, Sai merely shook his head, wholly resigned to his fate.

Kiba's lips wrapped into a wide leer as he drunkenly eyed the side of her face –much too close for her liking, "You know Sakura, after a few drinks, you're startin' ta look pretty good." After a bold lick to the side of her cheek, he added, "You sexy thing yo-!"

However, the hand that smashed the side of his face into the hard surface of their table cut him off.

Sakura pressed further onto the side of his suddenly sweating features as Akamaru began to bark by their legs, "No amount of sake could ever make me sleep with you. So knock it off, asshole!"

A hand banged the table's surface a few times in surrender from the assaulted male, "Alright! Alright! I get it! Let go! Let go already!"

Ino shook her head at the display, with unamused features, "He deserved that."

Sai distastefully looked over to the man, who was now rubbing the side of his face in an angry pout after being let go, "Yes, I'd have to agree."

* * *

Sakura's head lolled back against the top of her seat as an unintelligible moan slipped from between her numbed lips, "Urghd."

Ino poked the top of Kiba's head with a finger, "You alive?"

The man merely continued to drool on the table with the side of his face pressed into its hard surface, but had at least twitched and given her a grunt in response –at least she thought that had been a grunt.

With a defeated sigh, eyes on his unresponsive teammate, Sai began to get up, "I believe it is that time already."

However, Ino grabbed his arm to stop him, those blue watering eyes of doom creeping up, "Aw, can't you just leave her this teeny tiny one time, Sai?" Giving a sweet smile, the Yamanaka asked, "Can't you walk me home instead?"

Sai merely looked at her for a moment more, before gently retracting his arm from her person –for the hundredth time that night- before heading over to the now drooling kunoichi, "Although I have read that it is important for a man to walk the female home in these types of situations, It is also true that it is my responsibility to take care of my teammates when they are in times of need as well."

Going about situating the limp bit of kunoichi on his back, Sai continued under his burden, "So, I will have to apologize for not tending to your needs this night. However, please know that I appreciate your cooperation in my research."

Ino quirked a brow, "Research?"

With Sakura's body in place on his back, with the side of her cheek pressed to his left shoulder and her arms draped over his chest, Sai nodded, "Yes. I am quite certain I had made that fact known before I agreed to this outing in the first place."

Ino waved his words off suddenly irritable, "Yeah, yeah. I know." Looking over the flushed and unconscious woman on Sai's back, the blonde remarked, "Just don't mention that tidbit to Sakura and we're square, alright?"

Sai smiled, "I will not."

As her pseudo date for the night headed for the door with her best friend in tow, Ino looked down to the huge canine nuzzling her leg, "A girl can dream, eh?" Then, to the male left at her table, the scheming woman leered a menacing leer, "The nights still young and I'm in the mood for a little fun."

Getting up, Ino began to haul up the unresponsive Inuzuka, "Don't disappoint me now, Dog-boy."

Akamaru whined in mourning for his companion.

Poor, poor Kiba.


	15. Close Encounters of the Greatest Kind

_**Close Encounters of the Greatest Kind**_

"Ki…ba," Sakura unconsciously groaned out, feeling the hands on the backs of her thighs, as she hazily woke from her slumber, "Kill you."

The man under her replied with a sigh, "Please do not confuse me with that drunkard."

Sakura's heavy lids opened with a slight flutter as she fuzzily realized that voice did not in fact belong to Kiba and that she was moving. Looking down upon the scenery passing by in a blur, her arms automatically tightened around her savior as her eyes went wide from the rooftops whipping by beneath her body, "-hell!"

Tightening his grip on the woman who seemed to sway on his back slightly, Sai remarked dryly, "Please do not yell in my ear either."

Sakura, suddenly feeling foolish and finally recognizing the man carrying her, apologized as she laid a cheek to his shoulder again, while languidly tightening her grip on his upper body, "S-So- rry,"

"Also do remember, if the urge to vomit arises, to relay some form of warning beforehand. Or I will be forced to drop you and leave you where you fall," Sai wryly commented as he continued on toward his destination, that being her apartment.

Pushing down the slight bubble coming up in her chest at his words, the kunoichi gave an audible gulp before replying with a hummed salute of sorts, "Mhm."

Silence lingered as the dunk woman stared at the side of the man's neck, her numbed lips inches from his skin as she felt her body bob slightly with each of Sai's movements. She wondered if it felt as soft as it looked as she tried to keep the world from spinning and her stomach from churning. The breeze on her features helped to keep the kunoichi from upchucking all over her partner thankfully as her dull eyes began to grow heavy again.

Then, to keep sleep from cradling her in its embrace again, Sakura poked the side of his neck with a finger. The words slipped from her lips brokenly as the large amount of alcohol in her system effected her speech, her question one that had suddenly popped up in her foggy mind, "Not…wi…- hic-…Ino?"

Jumping to another rooftop, Sai, clearly a veteran in understanding drunken Sakura speech, merely replied with his own question, "Do I not generally end up your lackey on the nights where you have inebriated yourself beyond all reason? Why would this occasion be any different?"

"B-bu-" Sakura began, but was cut off as the man under her continued impassively.

"You are my teammate and thus I realized it was my burden to bear, even against my better judgment."

Sakura lips pursed as she managed a glare to the side of his neck, giving a sarcastic, "_T-T- anks._"

Sai, retorted with his usual aloofness, "If you feel any resentment toward that statement, then it is your own fault for letting yourself become so incompetent in the first place."

Sakura lolled her head to the other side, switching cheeks on his shoulder as a scowl tried to form on her flushed features, "Y-yeah, yeah."

Feeling the arms around his chest slacken again as the woman's strength waned under the influence, Sai chose to break the next bout of silence that followed, speaking of her drunken state, "Why did you feel the need to lower yourself so?" Frowning unseen, he added still facing forward as he jumped to yet another rooftop, "You tend to only imbibe so much when something is bothering you. Did the Inuzuka's earlier words hit a nerve?"

Sakura grumbled out a, "Uh-uh," in return as she shut her tired eyes and felt her hair whip in the wind in their wake as she found herself taking comfort in the warmth radiating from beneath her.

"Then why did you-?"

A sleepy, "Felt like it," fell from her lips… that had begun to slightly drool.

Dark eyes looked over to the back of pink locks as the man's frown deepened, his hold on the backs of her thighs tightening in the process.

An even longer silence persisted afterward, that lingered all the way to the little patio outside the now sleeping woman's bedroom sliding glass doors –her humble abode being three floors up in the large apartment complex.

With the slide of the unlocked door, Sai crossed into the familiar bedroom with easy steps, heading toward the side of the woman's tightly made bed.

The moment he came to it, he turned, and then deposited her body onto her nicely made blankets like a cumbersome sack of potatoes.

Bouncing slightly onto her mattress, the now awake female gave an audible, "oof!"

After setting her nearby wastebasket in front of her nightstand –as he always did- Sai began to head back to the door, giving a weary, "I'll be taking my leave then," over a shoulder.

However, he found his movement stilled as a hand shot out to his left wrist, effectively keeping him in place.

After looking down at the hand upon his person, Sai looked back to the woman it belonged to. A dark brow quirked at the expression he saw resting on her red-tinged features. It was similar to the one the Yamanaka woman had given him as she had tried to persuade him to walk her home, except the female before him had more than just a touch of sadness to it and she was only looking at the hand on his wrist.

To the ink-user she looked wholly not herself in that moment. And truth be told, Sai didn't like that look at all. It spelled weak and vulnerable, two things that he knew for a fact she wasn't. He knew she only showed that side of herself when doubt and depression hit.

He, like Naruto, disliked seeing such a display on her features and had done what they could in the past to bring about a change within her, when she had found herself in a funk in their presence. In most cases, this meant, for Sai, intentionally making her angry to rectify the situation.

However, she wasn't spewing nonsense about not doing enough for her comrades or lamenting about her own part in a failed mission. This look was similar, yes, but it was altogether different in its own way as well. And Sai would be lying if he said he wasn't utterly at a loss as to what to do in that moment.

Her name was spoken quietly as he gazed upon her with concern lighting his confused features, "Sakura?"

He watched her continue to stare at the hold she had on him a moment longer as if to try to understand her actions herself, before he saw her features darken even more, her eyes turning almost sorrowful.

With his mind trying to discern what was going on in her own, Sai barely heard the quiet words whispered between them then that lacked any stutter or brokenness in her speech.

But he had. He had clearly heard her say, "Don't go."

Sai frowned then, unable to grasp the situation at all. She had never said such a thing before. Usually, by the time he dumped her off, she was already telling him to get the hell out, if she wasn't already upchucking in the bin he always helpfully placed beside her bed, before leaving. He just could not understand this sudden request.

_Why would she-_

However, the moment she finally drew her gaze to his, those almost watery features and her adamant, yet seemingly desperate word stuck him hard, like one of the kunoichi's punches to his stomach, "_Please._"

Suddenly Sai found his body going with the flow as she gently pulled him back to the side of her bed, where she was half sitting, half laying on her side.

Sai equally found his body going to sit without having to be asked, like a spectator instead of an active participant in the events that followed.

Instead of speaking further, the kunoichi fully laid down on her pillows and blankets completely clothed –sandals and all- as she gently coaxed the easily led male down with her by the wrist.

Finding himself laying down on his side with the woman behind him, Sai felt her hand finally leave his wrist as her arms wrapped warmly around his waist and chest as she pressed her cheek contently to his back, much like that night Naruto, she, and he had shared their body heat under those blankets on that mission so many days before.

However, this time, Sai felt something was definitely different. It almost felt like, instead of body heat… they were sharing something else. But, just what that something was, he didn't know.

However, he had to admit, wrapped up securely in the woman's arms as his own tired eyes fluttered shut… it wasn't so bad. It wasn't so bad at all.


	16. Fun At The Expense Of Others

_**Fun At The Expense of Others**_

Knock. Knock.

A hand twitched.

Knock. Knock.

A groan was heard.

Knock. Knock.

A petite body pressed further into the warmth of the body pillow her arms held tightly to her chest.

Bang! Bang!

Green eyes met black cloth as the sleepy woman woke with a start, both startled by the sudden loud noise assaulting her throbbing brain and the odd view before her…that had strangely begun to move.

"Mwhra-?" Sakura found herself asking as the pillow turned man in her arms broke free and began to sit up.

Sakura scrambled backward as Sai, like waking up together was an everyday occurrence, stared blankly at her wide-eyed person as he ran a hand through his hair, plainly stating the obvious, "Sakura, I believe someone is at your door."

After a quirked brow that plainly said, "_Oh, you think?_" any further response of the woman's was suitably stifled as a familiar voice on the other side of that piece of wood spoke up, "Sakura, open up."

Needless to say, the voice of her Taichou had the stunned kunoichi springing into action. Regretfully, however, the moment the dizzy female's feet hit the ground, the world around her grew fuzzy with tunnel vision as her body swayed in its place.

After her rear flopped back onto her bed with a bounce, her bedfellow of sorts moved to get up with a shake of his head and a sighed, "I will get it then," thrown her way over a shoulder.

Vainly reaching a hand to stop him, the woman now having sprawled on her back moaned in a vain attempt at best, "Sai, no, wait-"

However, it was much, much too late as the oblivious fool opened her front door to reveal… not only their Taichou, but her old Sensei standing out in the hall as well.

"Well," Yamato began with raised brows and an equally surprised expression, while running a hand through his brown hair. Incredulous gaze on the smiling man before him, who wasn't supposed to be there so early in the morning, the suddenly flustered male added, "This is certainly a new development."

Sakura, groaning, slapped a hand to her face from within the room, her mortification and disarray clearly evident enough from over an equally bed-headed Sai's left shoulder.

"Yes," Kakashi remarked as he stuffed his hands in his pockets beside him. Then, flicking his gaze from the woman, obviously wanting to curling up into a ball and die on her mattress, to Sai's smiling features, the masked man commented ponderingly, "but this would explain the lack of answer at our last stop."

After a little bit of humorous consideration, while looking over the tomato-red kunoichi covering her face with both hands, Yamato added with a smirk twitching on his features, "I guess this would also explain why it took so long to get an answer here."

With Sakura moaning out an, "It's not what you think," behind her covering hands, Kakashi gave Yamato an, "Indeed," completely ignoring the female's words –completely having fun at her own expense.

Pulling out his favorite book and turning away –finally calling it quits to the verbal goading of sorts- the Copy Ninja added with his usual bored flare, "Hokage-sama wants to see us." Already walking down the hall with his smirking wood-using partner in tow, he added to the male still standing in Sakura's doorway, "Meet in her office in fifteen minutes."

Needless to say, the moment Sai turned around from closing her door, he found a pillow bouncing off his blank face and a yelled, "You idiot!" thrown toward his confused features from the woman still sitting on her bed.

* * *

"S-Something wrong, Sakura-chan?" Naruto hesitantly asked the irritable woman, who had kept her place feet in front of the rest of the team ever since they had begun their journey toward their new mission destination.

Sakura looked over her shoulder with a glare toward her dark haired teammate –desperately trying to ignore their two elders. She then gave a heavy sigh as she flicked her eyes from the pale bit of shinobi smiling her way to the blonde, who was giving her a confused look, "I'm fine."

Yamato shook his head with a tender gaze at the young woman's back as Sakura, with slumped shoulders and giving an even heavier sigh, turned around.

_Ah, young love._

However, Sakura's thoughts weren't so endearing. Truth be told, she wasn't fine at all! Not only had her drunken self stupidly asked Sai to spend the night with her, after letting her clouded emotions get the best of her, but now their two leaders probably thought she and the fool had actually _slept_ together!

Well… They did sleep with each other, but they hadn't done anything to warrant shame or embarrassment. Actually, the experience had been kind of-

_No!_ Sakura, hands coming up to the sides of her head as it shook, continued to walk on autopilot as she inwardly chastised her slip. _No-no-no-no-no! Damn it! I am so not falling for that-_

"Sakura, are you certain nothing is bothering you?" Sai so rudely interrupted her thoughts from behind.

The woman barked back without turning around, while abruptly dropping her hands into fists at her sides, his very voice grating on her already frazzled nerves, "I said I'm fine, damn it!"

Yamato's, "Seems there's trouble in paradise," was quickly stifled by the green eyes that looked his way with a scorching glare over a shoulder.

"Careful," Kakashi lightly commented from behind his pages beside him, "I would equate that to poking an enraged tiger with a stick."

Sweating slightly from the look of death he had just received from their no longer so little Sakura-chan –that he could have sworn had sprouted fangs and horns for a second there, before a blink told him otherwise- Yamato felt he had to agree, "No kidding."

Putting more space between her and the rest of the group, Sakura's feet picked up the pace as she inwardly grumbled, speaking of the man who had left her that morning with a mere smile and a, "I believe I should be going," thrown her way before exiting through her sliding glass door.

_How can that Idiot always be so damn calm all the damn time?! How can he be so stupid?!_

Naruto nudged Sai's side with an elbow and a whisper, "Hey, hey. You say something to piss her off again or something?"

Sai frowned at the woman's back, before giving his own heavy sigh, "I do not understand it myself."

Naruto quirked his brow at the man to his side, his thoughts even more confused now. After looking between his two best friends, his blue eyes rolled as he too sighed with a shake of his head, "Whatever."


	17. The GreenEyed Monster From Hell

_**The Green-Eyed Monster from Hell**_

"K-Kakashi-sensei," came the hesitant voice of the female walking beside the man reading.

"Hm," The masked ninja in question hummed in turn from behind a little orange paperback.

"About this morning," The kunoichi began, but stopped as the new turn of events in front of them caught her attention.

A finger, with a gold-ringed taloned extension covering it, drew back the equally gold-lined drapery as a smooth, deep voice flirtatiously called out to the individual walking alongside the moving vehicle, "Say Peasant, refresh my memory. What was your name again?"

A vein popped in the on looking woman's temple from behind, the kunoichi bringing up the rear of the gold and black lacquered carriage the five Leaf ninja were supposed to be escorting on the country road.

Kakashi merely went back to his book as he noticed that Sakura had apparently found other things to occupy her troubled mind with –much to his great pleasure.

The dark haired shinobi being spoken to merely smiled to the equally smiling man in the carriage as he replied, "Sai."

The finally clothed, handsome male with upswept, dark hair adorned with gaudy trinkets and pins gave a playful smirk as he looked the delicious bit of half-shirted shinobi, who seemed to be around the same age, over, "Don't you have a surname, Peasant?" Lifting a finely etched brow, the one born in riches added thoughtfully with a slight chuckle, "What kind of man allows himself to live without heritage?" Then that finger, delicately holding back those richly embroidered curtains, extended out… to play with the side strands of the other male's fringe.

_Bastard!_

Sakura completely forgot her previous ire at Sai for having embarrassed her that morning as she found herself inwardly growling at such an intimate act so rudely thrust upon his person.

Now, the kunoichi was hardly one to voice judgment against those that preferred a little man on man action, for she had her own hand-drawn collection of male on male shinobi love stashed in her closet at home. However, this bit of forbidden play before her sorely pissed her off… for reasons that Sakura was still struggling with. Regretfully, –or fortunately, if you looked at it in another way- like any other time the woman's temples began to throb in her head, anger overshadowed all else in that moment.

Kakashi, that audible grind of teeth and the sound of fabric stretching under a clenching fist catching his attention, looked over to the irate female beside him from behind his usual pages. With a touch of humor, the masked man advised, "Simmer down now."

"Tch" Sakura gave, before crossing her arms with a huff and looking to the side of the road to the mountainous terrain further away.

However, Sakura's attention was drawn back to her teammate as Sai's gloved hand finally snapped up to the one still playing in his hair.

Sakura's irate features relaxed into an arrogant smirk as, from the corner of her eye, she watched Sai grip and squeeze the hand he held _hard_, his usual mask for others in its rightful place, "I have been told that it is quite rude to touch another person without their permission, Shigamoto-sama."

The lord's son retracted his grip with his own snap of his hand, not with fierce eyes, but with an intrigued gaze that had Kakashi nudging the woman beside him into action with a single word, "Go."

"_With pleasure_," growled Sakura, before walking right up and between the two males before her.

The woman gave a stone-faced, "Position Change" straight to the leering face of the one in the carriage as her teammate gave her a quirked brow, before heading off to his new position in the back.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Sakura was lounging in the massive outdoor bath, whose men's and women's halves were bisected by a tall, bamboo wall in the middle.

The hour was late, the moon having risen in its fullest in the middle of the sky above.

Their escort mission of hair-raising sorts had thankfully come to an end.

Yet, the easy adventure had left the kunoichi's body and mind overly drained, having had to keep a watchful eye out for many a potentially dangerous situation…not for herself, but for a certain highly naïve fool –that still didn't understand that a certain someone wanted in his pants.

The kunoichi rolled her eyes and sighed at the way Shigamoto-sama had adamantly requested for her team to stay the night at his Uncle's estate –their final destination- to rest up for the return journey home the next day. She, Kakashi, and even Yamato knew the true reason that lay behind that particular offer. It had everything to do with the fool trying to bed the dark haired male in their midst -that was apparently total gay-bait.

_It's that stupid uniform!_ Sakura inwardly growled as she scowled up at the stars in the sky that hovered far above the drifting bit of steam around her shoulders.

Unfortunately, the duty of keeping the oblivious fool's virtue –or lack thereof- intact was laid upon her shoulders entirely, their two leaders feeling fit that Sai could handle himself under the circumstances.

As for their fifth member…

Of course, like most cases, Naruto had been left in the dark about such things, for the blonde never seemed to notice anything unless it was made of noodles, had boobs, or …noodles in the shape of boobs the idiot had created out of his own food.

Yes, the ignorant Hokage-wanna-be, who was free from being sexually accosted, because of his annoying behavior, had completely overlooked the fact that only Sai was put in a room all by himself… on the other side of the estate!

Sakura had fought tooth and nail –bribing a few female servants with a completely made-up description of what lay behind the mask of her supposedly handsome silver haired team leader- to be put along the same hall as the pasty idiot. She had even pulled up a chair between Sai and their client's son –who had repositioned himself from beside his Uncle to her teammate's side- at the lavish dinner that had been prepared for them that night.

She had even thwarted many attempts of Shigamoto-sama's to whisk Sai away in favor of _showing him_ _the rest of the manor. _Yeah, Sakura knew that the horny bastard had wanted to show Sai something alright, but it wasn't anything she would let happen on her watch damn it!

The woman sighed. She knew for a fact that Sai could defiantly handle himself against a mere spoiled rich boy with too many flaring hormones for his own good, but…

A hand hit the top of the water with a splash, the sound of the falling waters mirroring her own dissolving veil of ignorance having to do with herself and the lone male occupying the men's side of the bath on the other side of that wall.

No matter what she had been trying to tell herself, no matter what she had been trying to deny, the facts that day told an entirely different story. Yet, if she was being truthful, there was evidence even before then of what her heart had apparently kept trying to swindle her into believing.

However, it was the rearing of the green-eyed monster of jealousy in those last few hours that made things all too abundantly clear to the woman, who turned overbearing, possessive freak of nature in her oblivious teammate's midst every time Shigamoto-sama got within mere feet of him.

Yes. Wholly against her will and against every piece of good sense that the kunoichi thought she still possessed, Haruno Sakura, the very female who had wanted to rip out the ink-user's shriveled, almost non-existent heart when she had first met him had… She had… Sakura had…

The sudden sound of repeated water splashing -that strangely seemed like fists beating the bath's surface over and over again- had the soaking male sitting against the other side of that wall speaking up.

"Sakura, is everything alright?" Sai asked, with mild amusement overshadowing his concern.

Finally stilling her frustrated flailing, the female's body sank further down into the water, chin high, before giving out a whimpered –and highly pathetic in her eyes, "No."

The woman's mouth fell below the water line, before she poutingly went about blowing bubbles with her lips.

Sai frowned and found himself asking -against his better judgment, "What is it that is bothering you then?"

Sakura's lips floated to the surface for just the slightest few seconds, giving out an irritated, "_You_," before disappearing again beneath the waters to blow even more bubbles as her cheeks flushed red from more than just the heat around her.

Sai, completely confused, creased his brows as his frown deepened. Regretfully, any further probing he was about to do was halted from the door of his changing room sliding open mere feet away.

The familiar voice on the other side of that wall had the kunoichi's hackles rising, "So, how is the water, my little peasant?"

Needless to say, Haruno Sakura wasn't amused. She wasn't amused at all.

_I'm going to kill that bastard!_


	18. Falling In Love Can Really Blow

_**Falling In Love Can Really Blow**_

The sound of a body abruptly getting up from the water, on the other side of that tall, bamboo wall, caught the pale, young man's attention with the long, shiny, black hair cascading over his naked shoulders, a white fluffy towel tied securely around his narrow hips.

"Who is there?" Shigamoto Kauru barked with an authoritative air to the space of wall that sound had come from, slightly angry at having an audience to play to.

Sakura clenched a fist at her side, while suppressing the full-fledged anger in her voice as she spoke up behind grit teeth, "Its Haruno Sakura, Shigamoto-sama."

"What are you doing in this part of the-" The male then shook his head, while cutting himself off, "It does not matter, I suppose. You cannot intrude upon my _activities_ this time."

However, Sakura wasn't through with him just yet, "Shigamoto-sama, do you not have your own personal bath to use?"

Sakura heard the lilt to the man's voice as the light plodding of his footsteps came afterward, "Yes, but there is nothing like having a little company at your side in the bath, neh?"

The woman then heard his next comment aimed at the male on the other side, "You still did not answer me, my lovely peasant. Is the waters to your liking?" The listening kunoichi saw red as the smarmy bastard added with the sound of material slipping from a body, "If it has become cold, I am more than certain that I can find the appropriate way to _warm them up_ for you." The sound of a foot stepping into the water followed, before a deep, "Just say the word," was added.

Sakura's inward mantra began as she tried to do what her words so helpfully relayed.

_Breathe. Damn it, just Breathe._

However, her teammate's unconcerned, "It is sufficient," had the kunoichi growling.

_Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Toss his skinny ass out on his rear, you stupid bastard! Don't let him get anywhere near you!_

Sakura was feeling sorely upset that she wasn't sporting Sai's favorite word between her legs in that moment or she would be over in that section of the baths before their masked leader could say the word, "_Porn!_"

However, she was a mere female, completely missing those certain dangly parts that would give her access to what she felt like doing. And that would involve graphic and disturbing images of cutting off a certain something and stuffing it where… Well, it was much, much too graphic to state here.

Sakura chose that time to speak up, completely speaking to the one now watching the other naked male coming directly toward him –_with something else pointing his way_- with a quirked brow, "Sai, I think we've been in here long enough." Saying it with feeling so the fool would get it, she added purposefully, "_I _think we should go back to our rooms now._ Don't you?" _

However, the only movement she heard was Shigamoto-sama's as he advanced even further upon his prey, his deeply penetrating tone matching the hot and fiery gaze he was currently giving to the one he was set to ravish, "You can go back if you wish, woman, but I believe your teammate is staying_ exactly _where he is."

The rules of the bathhouse be damn, rationality went sailing out the window as the brain of the female on the other side of that wall utterly imploded.

_Meroo-Gah!!_

The waters around a certain woman became Tsunami like as murderous chakra leaked from every pore of the kunoichi's body. Suddenly a chakra enhanced fist struck the wall. Like a shockwave had hit it, the bamboo warped outward from her fist and then burst into a shower of little pieces that littered the water, the tiled floor, her own shoulders and her hair.

The heady fog of anger having wound her senses tightly, the kunoichi's eerily calm voice was heard, before even the large cloud of dust had begun to settle, "Get the hell away from him."

However, when that cloud of debris did clear, the angered woman, with the water coming up to her hips, found herself looking at something entirely not what she had expected.

Images of a blushing Sai's bits and pieces being manhandled sure, but not this.

Sakura's hands immediately went to cover her face –completely forgetting to cover her own bits and pieces- as her anger completely vanished in lieu of embarrassment toward the rather obscene scene before her.

Sai's bare chest was pressed to the back of Shigamoto-sama as the flailing fool was bent at the waist with his face shoved in the water by Sai's left hand wrapped in his silky black hair. That in and of itself wasn't too much for the kunoichi to bear. However, it was the placement of Sai's right hand, under the water, that was obviously wrapped around… well, a certain squishy bit of something between the other male's legs that Sai had spread with a knee that had the kunoichi bellowing, completely red-faced, "Oh my god, you idiot! Don't touch him there!" …while moving a finger to peep through.

Sai, the bottom half of his body thankfully covered by the debris littered water, looked up to the blushing woman, completely staring at her humble chest, "But I have learned it is best to handle such situations in this way."

Sakura followed his gaze from behind her hands -competely missing the fact that this had obviously happened before by his words- and then immediately sunk below the water to her chin as he twisted the fleshy baubles in his hand even further, making his pained victim shriek into the water. Over the muffled screams of Shigamoto-sama, Sai explained, now looking into the one eye not covered by her fingers, "It is imperative that you act instead of merely giving a warning to such pursuers, for they may not _take the hint_ as they say."

The kunoichi's hands dropped as she crossed her arms under the water, giving a pompous look to the man half drowning before her, "Oh, I think he got the hint alright."

Twisting what he held in his grip yet again, making the one under his hands finally pass out, Sai lifted the man's head from the water as he easily replied, while letting go of the other's jewels -much to Sakura's great joy, "Yes, I believe you are right."

Then as Sai began to stand, intent to drag the one in his grip to the tiled edge of the bath, Sakura's hands flew to her face yet again as she stuttered out, "S-Stupid! Don't do that!"

Sai, however, ignored her shriek as he dragged the unconscious body behind him in the water by the hair.

Then, Sakura found herself covered in darkness as something light and fluffy landed on top of her head. Picking it up with a hand, she noticed it was a towel –Shigamoto-sama's to be exact.

Sai answered the quirk of her brow at the thing as he fastened his own towel to his hips, now outside the water with the passed out body by his feet, "I believe you did say it was time to get out. Did you not Sakura?"

Sakura gave him a smile in return as she shook her head at the absurdity of the entire situation, "Yeah, I guess I did, huh?"

Then, as she began to head back to her own side, intent to go change, Sakura's smile fell as she heard Sai comment, his unseen smirk even apparent in his words as he spoke of the particular ones she had said before destroying a poor, innocent wall, "Get the hell away from him? Is that what you said, Sakura?"

Sai smirked even further as an irate, "Shut up!" was sent his way before the slide of a door was heard.

* * *

Throwing on her clothes, Sakura sighed.

Hopefully Shigamoto-sama wouldn't wake up or be found until they were long gone in the morning.

_One could always hope, eh? _

Then the kunoichi sighed again, while tightening the tie of her light weight, white yukata.

There was no denying it now. She had it bad for a certain idiot. Inwardly she lamented at her heart's unlikely choice.

_Why? Why him? Why does it have to be that idiot? _

The woman hung her head as her feet shuffled toward the sliding doors leading to the hall, her bundle of dirty clothes in hand.

Once outside, she found Sai already heading toward his room. With a sigh, she called out to him, "Where do you think you're going?"

Sai stopped and looked back, his words spoken as if she should have known, "To my room."

However, Sakura threw back his own tone with a bit of weariness to her own, "No. You're not."

Instead of explaining, Sakura walked over to the one giving her a confused, yet equally tired look. Then grabbing him by the wrist, she dragged him along behind her, with yet another sigh, "Come on."

Sai's reaction was an amalgamation of confusion, exhaustion from the late hour, confusion, puzzledness, and yet another bit of confusion.

The kunoichi leading him along, however, had another look to her features: complete and utter defeat.

If she had to resign herself to the fiery pits of hell that was being in love with the fool… Well, she sure as hell wasn't going to go down alone. Not this time. Uh-uh. No friggen way.

Besides, the horny bastard in the bath might just wake up and seek a little revenge, right?

And she couldn't have that, now could she?

Sai found himself asking as he finally paused just outside the woman's now opened door, "Sakura, I've already proven that I can take care of myself. I do not know why I would have to-"

However, he was cut off as the kunoichi pulled him over the threshold with a strong tug of his arm, "I know that."

A brow quirked, "Then why-"

Regretfully, the door was slid shut behind him -and locked- as the words, "Shut up, Sai. Now's not the time for talking," effectively cut him off.

Yes. Sakura was through running away from her feelings. She couldn't really do that when they were all out there in the open for everyone and their mother to see in the first place. In a way, she just hoped the fool was ready for it. The suppressed feelings of a female could be incredibly fearsome at times.

'_But then again,'_ Sakura inwardly growled, _'It's his own damn fault for making me love him in the first place, now isn't it?' _


	19. Sakura's Guide On How To Handle Idiots

_**Sakura's Guide on How to Handle Idiots**_

"But, Sakura," Sai tried again, before a hand was placed over his flapping lips and clamped.

Green eyes narrowed as the female they belonged to leaned close, her features inches from the back of her hand, "Sai, you're staying here tonight, even if I have to break every bone in that narrow little body of yours. You got that?"

Sai, finally coming to terms with the situation, nodded his head with slightly raised brows as the woman –that he just knew would own up to that bit- next led him over to the bed where she clearly pushed him down to sit.

Standing before her equally robed teammate, the kunoichi crossed her arms and began what she knew had to be done, for the flippant bastard probably wouldn't understand it put any other way. Looking down upon the one looking up at her with an expectant gaze, Sakura spoke, her voice tired, yet firm, "Sai, what do you think of me?"

Sliding his hands back on her large, white-curtained, four-posted bed, Sai tilted his head to the side with a slight twitch of his lips as he replied –purely poking fun at her in his normal truthful way, "You are a headstrong kunoichi, who apparently seems to lack any sense of femininity since the day you were birthed. Your battle technique clearly borders on barbaric, with the use of your fists being utilized even outside of war. You-"

Sakura's fists clenched, suppressing the urge for bloody murder as she interrupted the fool with a bark, "Not like that!"

A confused and slightly impatient –since the poor male was equally tired- reply of, "I do not understand. How else do you mean, Sakura?" was sent her way then.

As her hands ran through her damp locks to scratch at her scalp, the female groaned, "I mean like-"

Then she stopped and dropped her hands at her sides, suddenly remembering that to get through to Sai, she had to do as Kakashi-sensei did when dealing with an inept Naruto. One had to break things down to their basic forms with a little visual display to boot.

With a grumbled, "I _can't _believe you're making me do this," Sakura's hands went to the tie around her waist.

That got Sai's attention alright. He moved to sit up just as the belt of sorts under her fingers fell to the floor around her pink painted toes.

The next thing Sai knew, he was staring at a half naked Sakura in opened robe and high-cut, white, cotton panties hanging from her lithe hips.

Looking to the side, her face a blazing shade of red with her eyes closed, the female asked with pinched features of embarrassment as her hands held wide the rob's flaps at her sides, "What do you think of me now?"

Sakura felt the material in her hands being drawn together as the male replied with a slight chuckle –that made a vein pop in her temple, "_I think_ you need to close your robe, Sakura."

As the fool began to ask, "Sakura, what exactly are you-" the kunoichi, pushed completely to the edge, bruisingly bat his hands away as she brazenly moved to straddle his lap. After doing so, the female grabbed his right hand, bringing it to her right breast and made him squeeze. This time staring him full in the face, the woman dared him to laugh as she asked entirely stone-faced, "Do you feel anything now, Idiot?"

Sakura watched his lips move to a smirk as she suddenly just knew what was about to come next. Instead, she beat him to the punch as she all but yelled in his face, "I know it's a _friggen breast_, you idiot! But do you _feel _anything toward me by touching it?!" Finally dropping his hand, letting it fall to her thigh, she leaned forward, dropping her forehead onto his left shoulder as she groaned with mortification, "Don't make this harder than it already is, you sorry bastard..."

He was playing with her and she knew it. The trouble was that she still couldn't tell if he thought she was serious or not.

Her thoughts were confirmed as the female felt his chest heave with a small chuckle before he spoke, "Sakura, are you trying to seduce me?"

Rolling her face so that her cheek rested on his left shoulder as she stared at the wall, the poor female grumbled, "No, you bastard." Then she amended, "Well-" Then she tried again, this time speaking plainly, "I just wanna know if you have any feelings for me, ok? Can't you get that through that thick skull of yours already?"

The male gave a sigh as he drew his hands back behind him again, letting the female lean against him as he himself leaned back on his arms. Then he began to speak of the things he would rather not in a slow, quiet voice, "It has been said before that we are like family, yes?" Sighing again, he added, "And if that is indeed such the case, then I do not understand the need for you to ask such a question."

Sakura pushed back as she deadpanned –completely disregarding the fact that her robe was still open, "_What?_"

Sai looked to the side, over the shoulder she wasn't perched upon, as he explained in a questioning voice, "If Naruto is like that of my Nii-san, than should I not think of you as my-?"

"No!" Sakura interrupted with gusto as she grabbed the front of his robe in her hands hard.

As Sai turned back to the woman, who was two seconds away from throttling him within an inch of his life, he found his blank features inches from the other woman's blazing own. With a brow quirked, he plainly stated, "I do not understand. Then what is it that you wish to be?"

Sakura, sorely pissed off that things weren't going the way they should, snorted like a bull –highly unladylike for the situation, "_Not_ your sister, damn it."

Looking over his perplexed features, the woman sunk her brow to Sai's as she closed her eyes in frustration.

How could things be so muddled between them? How could he be so- How could he think of her as-

Hands tightening on the front of his robe again, the woman inwardly screamed.

This isn't fair, damn it! I finally-! You made me-! And now you-!

Sakura's eyes snapped open as she made up her mind.

_No._

Sakura shook her head, brow still touching Sai's.

_No way._

Another shake of her head.

_Just… no!_

Then, as an idea popped into her brain, the woman's features relaxed as her grip on his robe did as well. Placing her hands on the bed, on either side of the leaning man's torso, Sakura hovered above Sai's blank features as she eyed his lips with a heated gaze of determination, "Kiss me."

She watched those lips flap as he began to comment with a quirked brow, "I do not-"

However, she cut him off as she explained, eyes still on her prize, "If you can do that and you still think of me as your-" Sakura stopped as she found herself unable to repeat the word again in that moment. Then she tried again, "If you can do it and you still think of me in _that way_, then I'll leave it at that. And I'll never bring it up again."

Her words having made his own eyes float to the woman's lips -against his will- Sai asked in turn, his voice barely a whisper, "And if I do not?"

Sai watched those fleshy pink petals crack a small smile as the female bearing down upon him replied, "We'll get to that _if _it happens." With her smile falling completely, Sakura, heart already beating wildly in her chest, added in an equally quiet whisper, her warm breath fanning on the other's still lips, "Now shut up and kiss me, Stupid."

Sai, all but forced to do so, leaned forward, while suitably having no idea where this was going to lead in the end.

Needless to say, neither did Sakura. But it was entirely true that she was more than willing to find out.


	20. Is He Your Pro Or Is He Your Con Artist?

_**Warning: **This chapter has questionable **adult material** that I tried to do tastefully. So, please be forewarned. Other than that, on with the show and thank you for reading. :)_

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_**Is He Your Pro or Is He Your Con Artist?**_

Shrouded in darkness, lit only by the filtering moonlight from the sheer curtained window on the other side of that bed, two pairs of lips slowly met in what had to be the tenderest of touches.

The moment the kunoichi felt soft, supple lips press to her own, all thoughts, all worries, and all doubts, vanished in a sea of emotion overflowing from within that region centered around her rapidly beating heart. Senses turned heightened, the softness, felt from the one known to be sandpaper to her smooth edge, had the woman not wanting to let go of those gentle lips that sent a delicious shiver tingling down her spine.

That simple press was not electrifying. No. It was something that held much more meaning, something much deeper. It was the kind of kiss that verified everything she felt for the one on the other side of that innocent, yet utterly soul merging exchange. If there had been any doubt before, all reservation was erased now.

She _loved_ this man: body and soul. That almost painful flutter of her heart told her so.

Idiot or no. Inept or not. Sai had gone beyond mere unwanted teammate. He had jumped leaps and bounds above a mere friend. Slowing pulling back and looking into his dark and equally heavily-lidded eyes, Sakura now knew without a shadow of a doubt. She had fallen completely, deeply and ever so hard. Somehow and in some way, over the years, Sai had crawled his way beneath her skin and burrowed himself deeply inside the one thing she thought would never beat this way for another man ever again: her heart.

Realizing now that she had watched him for so long and from so far, the woman now mere inches from the male continued to gaze at him as she found herself hoping, praying, that he felt even the _slightest_ bit of that absolutely _amazing_ feeling that he had created inside her that continued to linger.

Looking over his blank features, a woman, being one of the few able to read his few and far between expressions, found herself at a loss.

His gaze stared hard at her lips that were equally slightly parted, but Sakura, a woman tragically inexperienced with actually receiving love, could not tell if his gaze meant anything or nothing at all. And the kunoichi sorely felt that she would be lying if she said it didn't squeeze her heart and steal her breath in that moment.

Their future hung on his next words, his feelings. Knowing this, the woman, filled with so many heady emotions that made her heart soar even as her eyes watered, asked, through a pained, yet hopeful whisper, "Anything?"

Sai looked over the woman before him displaying the sweetest pain and merely replied, "I am not certain." Feeling the woman's hands that were gripping the front of his robe begining to shake, he quickly added ever so quietly, "But I do know that," He paused as he leaned forward, this time a hand coming up to cradle the back of the woman's head as his other gently went around her waist inside the robe, "I would very much like to try that again."

Hearing his words and feeling him eagerly press his lips to her own, the water flowed freely from her eyes as her heart burst inside her chest, like the many sparkles of light behind her closed lids from such a moving exchange.

First this way and then that, ever so slowly their heads turned as their lips touched repeatedly in the process, the soft sounds of their chaste presses echoing in the darkness around them.

As the need to connect even more arose, for the first time, Sakura tasted the other's sweet breath and all that was Sai as their mouths parted and came together with a sweep of emotions, behind their slick muscles, that rolled together through their deepened exchange, much like waves flowing against and into each other in a sea.

This new bit of intimate contact had a spark lighting in the core of her body, in the place where her legs had weakened and turned to jelly. A hunger arose in Sakura as the hand in her hair gently leaned her head the other way, while Sai pulled back for a quick breath, before diving deep into yet another needy, yet ever so sweet kiss.

More. She wanted more. She had to have more. If she didn't, hands shaking in their place gripping his robe, Sakura felt as if she would surely die. But, she had to know. It was obvious now that he could push away that unwanted title of sibling that he had tried to thrust upon her, but did he love her? Could he love her? Or was his reaction simply a suppressed need for human contact, one that she, herself truthfully felt in a way.

She had to know. And that was exactly why she pulled away, breaking their earth-shattering kiss with a mournful hum as she looked down at her trembling hands.

Her tears having dried on her cheeks, Sakura hoped not to add new ones as she laid her heart on the line, behind a drying, wavy curtain of fallen hair, "I want more. I need more. I want… _you_," She paused, before continuing with a hard determination set in her voice, "It took forever, but I know now." Looking up to Sai's kiss-bruised, yet ever so impassive features, some of the woman's fierceness returned as she added, while looking clearly into his smoldering gaze, "For reasons beyond me, I've fallen in love with an idiot. But I will _not allow_ this to go on any further if you don't love me in retu-"

"Sakura," Sai plainly interrupting her speech.

The startled kunoichi frowned and then her lips took on a scowl as the man before her merely smirked, a complete almost evil grin as the fool spoke up, "Although I have to say that seeing you at such a loss in the beginning was quite fun, I stand by my thoughts that your delicate demeanor does not sit well with me at all." Still looking down at her with that grin that she suddenly wanted to rip off his face, Sai added, "It wounds me, however, that you would still think of me as naive," He quickly added, with a slight chuckle, "Even more so than usual as it may," He continued with a slight shake of his head as that damn smirk came back, "But I am not as foolish as you think." He watched her sit back and cross her arms with an unamused and highly pissed look in his lap as he added, "I have never once thought of you as anything close to resembling a sibling." Sakura's jaw almost dropped as he add, "I simply wanted to-"

"Hear me pour my heart out to you, effectively handing you the damn thing on a platter as you sat back and had your merry little fun?" Sakura interrupted, having caught on to his game, two seconds away from bashing a Sai-shaped hole in the wall.

"Yes," Sai quickly added, before he saw a glowing hand raise ready to strike, "And no."

A pink brow rose as she all but growled out, dropping her fist in the process, "Explain carefully and you just _might_ live through this."

Sakura didn't move a muscle from her Buda-like position on the bastard's lap as he leaned toward her with his hands slipping inside the folds of her yukata. His hands smoothly running up her sides, Sakura watched him stare at her with that smoldering gaze, his grin having fallen completely.

After pressing his lips softly to the side of her throat, Sai's voice all but hummed into the smooth flesh found there, "You've said before that I do not articulate well when it comes to words," Hands coming up to cup her breasts, he moved to kiss the other side of her neck as he added with a seriousness tingeing his deep voice that Sakura had never heard before, "Then let me show you."

Arms releasing to go around his shoulders, Sakura found her resistance starting to crumble as she growled, "You are _such_ a bastard."

Sakura felt the fool's lips and voice twist into a smile as they gave feather light kisses to the underside of her set jaw, "Yes, so you keep saying."

Sakura blew out a breath, the cracks in her walls begining to further crumble, as she lifted her chin and tilted her head to give him further access, "I could still kill you, you know. You'd totally deserve it too."

Sai's lips slid further down her neck as his hands sweetly kneaded what they held, "Yes. I am quite aware."

Sakura sighed again as his soft hair brushed against her bare shoulder, after his traveling features had nudged the silky material covering it from its place, "I made a complete fool out of myself because of you, you know."

"Yes, you certainly did," Sai replied as his exploring lips journeyed even further down her body.

Sakura's voice turned breathy, completely dropping her facade, as the mouth trailing her form moved to the slope of a creamy mound, "You better feel lucky that I love you, damn it."

Seconds before his lips encased a strawberry dab of flesh, Sai gave an equally breathy, "Yes, I believe that is something I can do."

Soon things moved toward a more carnal state between them as Sakura's robe was made to pool around her toned, moon-kissed form from the hands currently roaming her body. Her own found their way to the tie at the other's waist between them.

However, Sakura soon found herself on her back, her form pressed into the blanket-covered mattress beneath her as the man she loved hovered above with a shake of his head. Sakura watched enraptured as Sai's fingers played at the tie at his waist, his words as he did so creating a smile upon her lips, "You are always feeling the need to take the lead."

The sound of fabric upon fabric echoed in the stillness, before Sai tossed away the material. With it ending up being discarded on the bed beside them, Sakura watched on further through lowered lashes as his robe opened to reveal a pale, yet chiseled body, whose flat planes and curves were both manly, yet holding a feminine flare to it all the same if that were even possible. But in Sakura's eyes, she saw it as beautiful perfection that was hers alone.

However, she did notice one thing odd. Unlike herself, Sai wasn't wearing a single thing underneath that lightweight piece of material. Vaguely she wondered just how the hell she didn't notice something that important beforehand, but all thought went out the window as the robe-like garment was slid from his shoulders in a single fluid motion.

Yet again, the word perfection came to mind as his hands traveled the outsides of her thighs gently, before going about divesting her of the soul remaining garment on her body. Sakura lifted her hips as that little piece of white fabric was slid from her person in -dare she think it- a loving way.

Feeling no shame, no doubt, the kunoichi held out her hands, giving him her warm invitation in turn afterward, with her pet name falling from her lips in an ever so sweet way, "Come here, you bastard."

Yes, the man crawling up her form and pressing his chest to her own could drive her past the point of insanity at times, but he was her bastard, her idiot, her not so naïve fool. Sai was hers alone.

As he entered her body, Sakura's words rained down upon them, between kisses that stole her very breath and also breathed life into her very soul. With feeling, with emotion, with belief, with faith, with conviction, the woman feeling exactly what the other could not convey, relayed her own words over and over as they came together again and again that made more than her toes curl or her back arch, "I love you." A kiss and a move of the mattress. "I love you." Another kiss and another rocking motion, "I love you." Yet another greedy kiss and another hard rocking motion, "I love you so much, Sai."

In between further kisses, she recorded and catalogued each and every new expression and sound that their coupling produced, from the man above that was not known to show emotion.

These were her sides of her teammate and new found lover that she didn't want Sai to show anyone else, but her.

Soon, Sakura's words became broken and unmanageable as their lovemaking crescendoed to the point of euphoria. Spilling over that edge, the corners of Sakura's eyes watered at more than just that feeling of bliss that made her body stiffen and her world go white.

She didn't need to hear her words returned to her as the man, desperately clinging to her body, finally joined her in that pleasure-filled paradise. Arms tightening around his sweat-laced neck as she pressed her own perspiration coated brow to his shoulder, she just _knew _he loved her.

Sai loved her. He hadn't said it, but his actions plainly told the story his lips could not. Finally, a man, who had stolen her heart, actually chose to return her love for once. And that knowledge had her already rampant emotions spiraling.

Holding him to her chest tightly, Sakura found herself more than thankful for Sai's equal bout of silence in that moment as she was sure that one single word could send her weeping into his flushed skin.

For how long, she didn't know, but she stayed there, connected so closely both literately and figuratively to the one she loved in that hush as she simply took joy in being alive, being in love, and being with Sai.

Then…

As the moment passed, like a magical spell being broken, Sakura managed a small laugh as she hoarsely spoke to the one, whose body was now crushing her own, "You're heavier than you look."

Sakura felt the tightened arms around her relax as they pushed up with Sai turning and looking down upon her with a smile.

Her own lips began to frown and then scowl as that damn smirk from before overtook his exertion flushed features, "Ironic coming from someone, who is no lightweight herself."

Sakura rudely pushed him off her then, intent to get up, but found strong arms wrapping around her from behind. After being pulled on her side toward him on the bed, the kunoichi sighed as she later lay trapped in his tight embrace with her back against his chest securely, "We're an odd pair, aren't we?"

She felt the breath from his chuckle on her neck as Sai spoke into the back of her hair, "Yes, I would have to agree."

Then, with a slight hesitancy, the female called, "Sai?"

Her lover merely hummed a, "Hm?" into her hair as they laid there completely naked in the darkness, warmed only by each other's heat.

"When did you know that," She paused as she tried to find the words, but then just added, hoping that he would understand, "Well, you know."

And he did. He knew that she meant, "When did you first know that you loved me."

His reply was a simple, "To be truthful, I do not recall."

Sakura laughed as she admitted, "Same."

Laying there in his arms as her eyes began to flutter shut. She knew that she didn't need to know the hows or whys of their love. She just knew it was real and that was all that mattered really. Well, that and the bastard did _still _deserve a little punishment for making her make a complete fool out of herself earlier.

Sleep slowly calling her home, Sakura smiled contently as her lips moved slowly before stopping for the night, "I'm still gonna kick your ass."

Sai's lips merely twitched into a true smile as he too let the sweet embrace of the sandman overtake him, holding the kunoichi tightly even in dreams, "Yes, I'll be looking forward to that."

_Damn masochist. _

'_But then again,'_ She mused, before her consciousness waned completely, _'He would have to be, to want to be with me.'_

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**Footnote:** Yes, Sai isn't that stupid. He knew what she was doing and what he was feeling too. He's just cunning that way. So, yes, Zelha. You were completely right! Heh. I went for a different aproach for the smut. I just didn't think they deserved my usual graphic, slightly vulgar take on it. However, I just hope I didn't drown anybody in the sweetness. This isn't the last chapter. The next one should wrap the story up nicely. :nods Thank you for reading. :)


	21. A Not So Pseudo Date

_**A Not So Pseudo Date**_

"Sakura, does the killer have some sort of regeneration juts-?"

"_Sh."_

"Why does he seem to only prey upon what is called the babysitt-?"

"_Sh."_

"How can one not feel another's chakra if they are standing right be-?"

"_Sh."_

"But I do not understa-?"

"_For the love of Kami, Sai, I will shove your entire bag of popcorn down your stupid throat, if you don't shut up and let me watch the damn movie!_" The pink haired woman beside him all but bellowed, toward the side of her date's impassive face, in the otherwise empty movie theatre.

Turning back to watch the film –with the so-called babysitter about to call her boyfriend over, while the poor kid that she was supposed to be watching slept upstairs- Sakura added, much less hostile as she popped some of her own popcorn –from her own bag- into her mouth, "I'll explain at the end. Ok?"

Sai gave a hum in return as he continued to watch the slasher flick that she hadn't exactly had to force him to come along to.

Since the completion of a certain escort mission so many weeks before -that ended with their halves of the mission pay being used for the rebuilding of a certain bathhouse wall- Sakura and her new beau had done many things together like this.

And after many a first disaster, the kunoichi had finally figured out how to handle her new found love affair. For one, Sai was _still_ and would _always_ _be_ plain old irritating, make you wanna pull your hair out Sai.

So, to watch a movie without having to be subjected to irate fellow movie-goers shushing them every five seconds or having his embarrassing comments making her want to run for the hills, Sakura had taken to watching movies only _after_ they had been out for a while. Less people meant less stress on herself.

Sai didn't seem to mind. Of course, the bastard never did to begin with.

Popping another handful of buttery goodness into her mouth, her cheeks inflated like a bad case of bee-sting, Sakura chewed quietly as the boyfriend of the teen showed up on a front doorstep on screen.

Sakura had also learned that Sai wasn't one to share and still made off-hand comments that enraged her to the point of punching him in the face, gut, or any part of his body that was within range. Really, one would think that a man –having said it before and being suitably punished for it- would know better than to comment on weight gain and how his other half should avoid it.

Regretfully, Sai was still lacking in the tact department. Emerald eyes narrowed on said man's profile that was beside her in the dark. _Or the bastard does it on purpose, just to rile me up!_

Yes, Sakura suitably thought the reason was much more the latter than the first.

She had also learned that the masochistic idiot wasn't one for open public displays of affection. (Or so she had learned that one time she had tried to kiss him, on their first dinner date at a restaurant, only to end up having his palm being where his lips should have been in the process… before said palm rudely pushed her away.)

However, that wasn't to say that the idiot didn't get a little touchy-feely when they were behind closed doors, or next to sleeping bodies –poor Naruto-, or where no one else could see them.

Sakura squeezed the pale bit of arm, her own was wrapped around, on the armrest between them. Even with all his unusual habits and mannerisms and the rude and off-color comments coming from his usually flapping lips, the facts were the facts. She still loved the fool, even if she felt like bashing his face in at times.

Then an image of a vein-popping, whiskered idiot assaulted her mind as the two onscreen began to make out on a couch.

Naruto hadn't been merciful. Well, at least not after Sai had ruined all chance of breaking it to him gently, on the way home from that disaster of a completed mission that had led to their coupling in the first place.

When Yamato had jokingly asked Sai, after having yelled in their faces beforehand, "So, I take it you didn't let yourself get attacked last night, eh?" after having noticed the way Shigamoto-sama had awkwardly walked away from docking their pay....

Well, Sakura and the rest of the group hadn't expected the ink-user's wholly smirked and utterly arogant response of, "No. Not by Shigamoto-sama, at least," as he had looked _right at_ the woman nonchalantly standing at his side.

When both jaw dropped team leaders flicked their wide-eyes to the red-faced kunoichi, who had immediately went to suitably strangle her supposed lover in turn… Well, it went without saying that even a daft Naruto was able to put two and two together under the circumstances.

It wasn't too hard really from Sakura's screeched, "You stupid bastard! Tell the entire world, why don't you?!" as her hands crushed the very breath from a windpipe.

Yeah… Her hands hadn't been the only ones wrapped around Sai's neck then.

Thankfully, in the end, after Kakashi and Yamato had both pulled off the pissed-off man and woman from the poor, purple-faced Ink-user, things had settled down and Naruto –like the brother and friend he truly was- had come to his senses. With a begrudging look off to the side, the blonde had extended his hand out to Sai, who took it and shook it with a smile. He even continued to smile as Naruto had growled out, "Make her cry and I'll _kill you_."

Yes, life was sweet for the kunoichi cuddling up to the man she loved as the two teens, on screen, started having sex before their very eyes.

Sakura's head tilted to the side along with Sai's.

A, "He lacks penis," was replied to with a, "Yeah, poor girl."

Then, Sakura's, "Well, looks like someone's gonna die," was replied to with an, "Indeed," as a shadowy figure loomed over the oblivious two on the couch on screen.

* * *

Pushing through the movie theatre's double doors into the cool night air, Sakura giddily smiled as Sai came up from behind, her favorite time of the night just around the bend, "Ah! Dessert! Dessert time!"

Sai sighed as he came along side her, "At this point, you do not always have to remind me."

Ah, yes. Their relationship was based on give and take. Sakura paid for the movie… and their damn popcorn, while she forced him to pay for the ice-cream afterwards. It was a suitable situation, if she did say so herself.

* * *

Sitting on their usual bench, stuffing her face with a banana split with her other half licking a vanilla ice-cream cone to her side, Sakura hummed contently behind her mouthful of delicious treat, "This is _so _good."

Silence lingered around them as the two enjoyed what Sai's money had paid for.

Sakura's mind wandered as she looked up to the moon in the sky. That glowing orb took on the face of a certain blonde kunoichi then, making the woman smirk with strawberry sauce clinging to her lips.

It seemed strangulation had become the fad for all who learned of their newly formed relationship of sorts. However, Sakura had enjoyed every minute of having the breath crushed from her throat -with nothing but the purest form of smugness coating her purple features at finally having bested Ino in love after all.

Smirking at that moon turned blonde, Sakura raised her chocolate covered spoon as she inwardly exclaimed with arrogance, _'Ha! The bastard's all mine, damn it! Whose dying the spinster now, huh?!_'

The kunoichi continued to eat her treat in peace with that smirk continuing to linger on her food-stained lips just as the silent man to her side spoke up, "Sakura? Will you explain to me-"

Sakura interrupted, while waving off his words with an errant wave of her spoon, "Yeah, yeah." After stuffing her face again, she began, "Its like this..."

* * *

After her lengthy explanation of how knife-wielding, fictional killers and their horny, teenaged prey worked, Sakura, after having thrown away her trash, got up with an audible stretch of her limbs and a strained, "Come on, you bastard. We've got training in the morning."

As she began to walk off in the direction of her apartment –expecting him to follow, a hand on her wrist stopped her as she heard the sighed words from behind, "I will never understand why you feel the need to always take the lead."

As Sakura turned around with a smile, Sai added with an irritable frown, his hand still on her person, "Is it not the male who generally does so?"

Sakura found herself laughing at the downturn of his lips that so closely resembled a pout, while shaking her own head with mirth, "Yeah, _generally_." Then scrunching her nose playfully, she added –verbally taking a potshot at his manhood …just as their two leaders liked to do to him every chance they got those days, "But, I wouldn't say so in _our case_."

Sai's lips took on a distasteful twist. However, his features quickly turned an embarrassed shade of crimson as feminine arms went around his shoulders, with the kunoichi's lips planting a kiss on his flushed, clearly turned away cheek.

"What?" Sakura asked as she smirked at the clearly blushing male in her arms –that thankfully hadn't pushed her away, since the area was deserted for the moment, "Did you want to go back to your place instead?"

The kunoichi's features dropped completely as she heard him reply with a strong, "_Yes,_" but quickly returned to their gleeful state as he added, still looking away, "If you wish to come along that is."

Sakura finally let Sai go as another couple rounded the bushes in the empty park. Starting off in the direction of her new destination -that being his apartment, Sakura playfully called over a shoulder, "Come on, slow poke!"

Sai shook his head as his chin hit his chest, feet already doing as was asked. Speaking to no one in particular, he sighed out wearily, "How manly."

Needless to say, eyes downcast like that, he didn't notice the stop of the woman's feet ahead or that feminine fist that oh so lovingly sailed his way as the bastard finally caught up.

Yes. It clearly went without saying that a love so completely strange and odd like their own could only have happened …_between friends_.

_**The End**_

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**Footnote:** I'm so sad it's over, but I thought it would only do to end it here. Thank you for all the positive reviews and any who just read and enjoyed the story. If I have made at least one person slightly consider this overlooked pairing, then that's enough for me. Thank you so much for reading! :)


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